Creating molecular animations isn’t just about rotating a molecule or changing colors. Sometimes, it’s about storytelling — visualizing interactions, processes, or transitions in ways that make complex behavior simpler to understand. One frequently overlooked but highly effective animation technique in SAMSON is the Hide animation. This post walks you through how and why to use it in your next molecular video project.
✨ The Challenge: Cluttered Scenes and Overexposed Processes
If you’ve ever animated a large biomolecular complex, you’ve probably run into the issue of visual clutter. Proteins, ligands, ions, solvents — they all compete for attention, making it hard for viewers to follow a specific trajectory or binding event. Transparency can help, sure — but sometimes, things just need to disappear.
👻 Enter the “Hide” Animation
The Hide animation in SAMSON helps you make selected nodes fully disappear (without relying on transparency), precisely at a keyframe. After that, they remain hidden until the animation ends. This simple effect can dramatically improve the narrative pacing of your molecular movies, especially when guiding an audience through multistep interactions.
📽 How It Works
To use this feature:
- Select the nodes you want to hide (e.g., a solvent shell, surrounding residues, or even an entire domain).
- Double-click the Hide animation in the Animation panel of the Animator.
The animation generates three keyframes:
- Keyframes 1–2: Nodes remain visible.
- At Keyframe 2: Nodes become hidden.
- Keyframes 2–3: Nodes stay hidden until the animation ends.
You can shift the positions of these keyframes freely to time the disappearance according to the story you’re telling — whether it’s after a conformational shift or before a ligand binds.
🎯 When to Use It
- To emphasize a ligand binding by hiding surrounding solvent just before docking.
- To focus attention on an allosteric site, after introducing a protein domain.
- To step viewers through a multi-subunit complex, hiding each domain as you finish describing it.
🛠 Tips for Smoother Scenes
Note: This is not a transparency-based animation. It toggles actual visibility, making it ideal when you want to reduce visual weight rather than apply a fading effect. If you’re looking for progressive visibility or disappearance, combine Hide with Appear or Disappear animations.
The easing curve of the Hide animation can also be edited for precise control over timing. Learn more about easing curves here.
✅ Final Thoughts
Sometimes, clarity comes not by showing more, but by revealing less. The Hide animation is a quiet but powerful tool to help your audience focus on what matters most — whether it’s a key mechanism, a binding pocket, or an emerging structure.
To learn more, visit the original documentation page: Hide animation documentation
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. Get it at https://www.samson-connect.net