Designing molecular presentations that clearly guide an audience through complex simulations or structural changes can be challenging. Often, molecular modelers want to highlight specific moments during an animation, explain transitions with voiceovers, or simply manage timing better during a live seminar or recording. One helpful but sometimes overlooked feature in SAMSON is the Stop animation, which can help you bring more intentional structure to your animated molecular stories.
Why Animations Need Pacing
Animations are a powerful communication tool in molecular modeling. They help audiences see transitions and dynamics that would be difficult to explain with still images. However, when an animation runs uninterrupted, it can become difficult to focus on key moments or explain what’s occurring. You might find yourself thinking:
- “I wish I could pause here and talk about this conformation.”
- “This part of the animation is too quick, but slowing everything down ruins the flow.”
- “I want to present this as if they were slides in a slideshow.”
This is where the Stop animation comes in handy.
What the Stop Animation Does
The Stop animation in SAMSON simply pauses the presentation at a specified keyframe. To continue, the presenter (or viewer) can either hit the Space bar or click the Play button in the Animator controls.
This allows you to break your animation into clear segments, effectively simulating a slide-deck experience within a continuous molecular animation. It’s particularly useful during:
- Lectures and tutorials, where pacing matters
- Video exports, when combined with voice-overs
- Live demos, when you want to pause and take questions
How to Add a Stop Animation
To insert a Stop animation keyframe:
- Open the Animation panel in the SAMSON Animator.
- Double-click the Stop animation from the effects list.
- The keyframe will be created at your current frame location. You can move it later to a more precise point if needed.
Note
You can always move the keyframes of the animation.
Tips for Effective Use
- Plan your story: Think of each Stop as a chapter break. This helps you organize your thoughts and pace your explanation.
- Use with Narration: If you’re recording a video, Stop keys give you room to explain what’s happening without rushing.
- Combine with Pause: If you want time to look at a structure but don’t want the playback to halt completely, you can consider using the Pause animation for a temporary slow-down.
Breaking your animation into understandable segments not only helps your audience; it can also make presenting and narrating your models much less stressful. Once you start using Stop animations, you’ll likely find many creative and useful applications for them.
To learn more about this feature, visit the official SAMSON documentation: https://documentation.samson-connect.net/users/latest/animations/stop/
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON from https://www.samson-connect.net.