If you’ve ever tried to capture smooth horizontal motion in your molecular animations — like sliding across a membrane or tracking a large biomolecular structure — you’ve likely found it challenging to keep both the focus and framing consistent. Shaky or manual camera shifts can break immersion and reduce the clarity of your message.
This is where SAMSON’s Truck camera animation comes in. It enables you to perform clean, horizontal transitions between two camera keyframes by moving both the camera’s position and its target point in parallel. This means the entire scene appears to slide sideways, just like a dolly movement in real-world cinematography — ideal for guided tours of molecular systems or comparable visualization tasks.
When to Use the Truck Camera
This animation is particularly useful when:
- You want to create sideways motion through a molecular channel or tunnel.
- You need to move across a membrane or interface without zooming or rotating.
- You’re showing comparisons between parts of a larger biomolecular complex.
- You wish to avoid distracting orientation changes during transitions.
The Truck camera keeps the orientation and viewing angle stable, giving your audience a more natural and continuous experience of spatial relationships.
How to Add the Truck Camera Animation
To use the Truck camera animation in SAMSON:
- Go to the Animator’s Track view and choose your start frame.
- Set the camera’s orientation and position to how you’d like the view to begin.
- In the Animation panel, double-click on the Truck camera effect.
- Set your desired end frame. SAMSON will shift both the target point and the camera’s position horizontally to the right.
You can always adjust the start and end frames later to fine-tune your animation. The horizontal displacement is defined in the camera’s reference frame, so the motion feels smooth and consistent with your initial view.
Fine-Tuning the Animation
To tailor the animation to your molecular scene, consider the following options:
- Apply to active camera: By default, the animation is applied to the currently active camera. Inspect the animation to assign it to another camera if needed.
- Keep camera upwards: When this is enabled, the animation becomes dependent on whether the grid is turned on. It helps preserve a consistent upward orientation.
- Easing curve: You can interpolate the movement between frames for smoother acceleration or deceleration by adjusting the easing curve.
What About Adjustments?
Even after adding the Truck camera animation, you can still edit the camera’s positions and target points using animation controllers. But keep in mind that this specific animation comes with some constraints: it’s designed for consistent horizontal shifts, so extreme changes to target or position might contradict that logic.
For a better visual understanding, here’s what the Truck camera animation looks like in action:
To learn more and see all available options, refer to the official documentation:
https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/truck-camera/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.