In molecular modeling and design, visually exploring your system from different perspectives is often essential. Whether you’re preparing high-quality animations to showcase a particular biological phenomenon, or simply wish to inspect the vertical structure of a complex nanomaterial, moving the camera with precision can make all the difference. One common challenge is vertically shifting the camera’s point of view without radically changing the spatial context. That’s exactly where SAMSON’s Pedestal camera animation proves useful.
The Pedestal camera animation allows you to move both the camera’s position and target point in the vertical direction, while maintaining their relation and orientation. If you’re trying to create a smooth upward or downward motion in your animation—without rotating or orbiting the camera—this method offers a controlled and intuitive solution.
Why it matters
Imagine you’re modeling a large biomolecular structure such as a virus capsid or a membrane protein embedded in a lipid bilayer. These systems often have spatially distinct layers. When you need to film a smooth inspection or reveal through different vertical ‘slices’ of the system, a Pedestal movement enables fluid transitions without disrupting the viewer’s focus.
How the Pedestal camera works
Using the Pedestal camera animation in SAMSON involves setting two keyframes in your scene:
- Select the start frame in the Animator’s Track view and orient your camera the way you want it to look at the beginning of the animation.
- Double-click the Pedestal camera effect in the Animation panel to insert the animation.
- Set your end frame. The camera will move vertically (within its frame of reference), maintaining the same orientation and field of view while lifting or lowering.
This animation is particularly useful for presentation and inspection purposes. It complements other directional animations like the Truck camera, which moves horizontally in a similar fashion.
Controlling the motion
After applying the animation, you can fine-tune the motion in a few ways:
- Drag and adjust the start and end frames along the animation timeline.
- Inspect the animation to choose whether to apply it to the active camera or another defined one.
- Modify the Easing curve to change how the camera transitions between positions—for example, you might want a linear motion or a slow-in, slow-out effect.
Note that if you have a scene grid enabled, the Keep camera upwards setting can affect the interpretation of the vertical direction. This is worth experimenting with to ensure the animation behaves as expected for your project.
Limitations and capabilities
While you can adjust the camera’s target and position using animation controllers, the Pedestal camera imposes synchronized vertical movement on both. This is by design: it maintains spatial context and prevents unexpected rotations or tilting. Projects requiring only rotational changes may benefit more from other animation types like orbit or rotation effects.
In summary, when you need to transition vertically through layers or simply nudge your viewpoint smoothly along the axis perpendicular to the floor, the Pedestal camera effect provides a consistent and reliable animation tool in your molecular modeling workflows.
To learn more, visit the full documentation page here: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/pedestal-camera/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can get SAMSON at https://www.samson-connect.net.