Whether you’re preparing a molecular presentation, creating a scientific animation, or designing an educational video, selectively hiding parts of your molecular model can be essential. Highlighting only the key actors of a protein-ligand interaction, demonstrating intermediate stages of a conformational shift, or streamlining visuals for clarity—these are all situations where visibility control plays a significant role.
The Hide animation in SAMSON is a straightforward yet helpful tool that allows you to do exactly that: make selected nodes disappear from view at the right moment in your animation timeline. Unlike changes in transparency, hiding nodes completely removes them from view, which means there’s no ambiguity—they simply aren’t rendered between specific keyframes. This can simplify your scene and guide attention more effectively.
The core idea
In SAMSON, animations are keyframe-based. The Hide animation works across three keyframes:
- Keyframe 1 to 2: Your selected nodes remain visible.
- Keyframe 2: The moment when the nodes vanish.
- Keyframe 2 to 3: Those nodes stay hidden.
This is helpful to orchestrate clean transitions—for example, when you want to focus on a subunit of a macromolecular complex without the distraction of neighboring structures. Instead of using two separate animations (Shown and Hidden), the Hide effect does both in a single step, saving you time during animation setup and ensuring smooth transitions.
How to add the Hide animation
- Select the nodes (atoms, residues, molecules, etc.) you want to disappear during your animation.
- Open the Animation panel in the Animator.
- Double-click the Hide animation.
- Adjust the timing and position of the three keyframes as needed, to synchronize with other animation events.
You can always reposition the keyframes to modify the moment of disappearance. The animation can also be fine-tuned using easing curves for smoother or more abrupt transitions, even though hiding is a binary event.
Practical tip
If you previously used the Animation menu to add effects, note that SAMSON now uses the Animation panel inside the Animator. All animations and presentation actions—Hide included—are accessible there.
This is especially useful in tutorials or demonstrations where clarity is paramount. For example, if you’re illustrating the effect of ligand binding on a protein structure, you can use the Hide animation to dissolve unrelated regions of the protein at the right moment—providing a cleaner view without permanently deleting data.
To learn more and see examples in action, check out the full documentation for the Hide animation here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/hide/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.