When creating molecular animations, one frequent challenge is controlling when specific components appear during your presentation. Whether you’re highlighting a ligand binding to a protein or the formation of a molecular assembly, the timing of element visibility is essential to engage your viewer and enhance clarity. But manually toggling visibility frame-by-frame can become tedious and error-prone.
In SAMSON, the Show animation effect is designed to address exactly that.
What the ‘Show’ Effect Does
The Show animation makes selected nodes (molecular components, geometries, etc.) appear at a chosen keyframe and remain visible until the end of the animation. Unlike changing transparency or manually adjusting visibility at each point, the Show animation cleanly manages visibility using SAMSON’s timeline-based system—with just one effect.
This feature is a shorthand for combining the Hidden and Shown animations consecutively. It essentially makes components hidden at the beginning and visible mid-way forward.
When Is This Useful?
This animation is particularly handy when:
- You want a molecule to appear halfway through a scientific demonstration, e.g., introducing a cofactor or an ion channel gating event.
- You are visualizing a reaction mechanism and need components to be revealed step-by-step.
- You are building narrative sequences where you progressively introduce molecular structures.
How to Use It
1. First, select the nodes (atoms, groups, molecules) you want to show later in the animation.
2. Then, double-click on the Show animation effect in the Animation panel of the Animator.
This will generate a 3-keyframe structure:
- Keyframes 1 to 2: The nodes remain hidden.
- At keyframe 2: The nodes appear.
- Keyframes 2 to 3: The nodes remain visible for the rest of the animation runtime.
Keyframes can be freely repositioned on the timeline, allowing you to synchronize appearance with other animation events.
Tweak the Behavior
The Show animation supports interpolation tweaks using easing curves, allowing you to control the tempo of visibility changes. Though the visibility toggle is discrete (hidden to visible), adjusting the easing curve affects how smoothly other concurrent animations behave—for instance, in combination with camera or motion effects.
Here’s an example of it in action:
For Smooth Storytelling
If you’re building presentations or videos for your lab, lectures, or publications, this tool minimizes the micromanagement required in visibility control. Instead of jumping between nodes and toggling their states, you can simply insert this animation and focus on telling your molecular story.
To learn more, visit the full documentation page for the Show animation here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/show/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.