During a molecular modeling session, many scientists and educators aim to produce smooth, visually clear animations that reflect the dynamic behavior of molecular systems. Whether it’s for simulations, educational videos, or collaboration, capturing the motion of atoms as they transition from one state to another is often essential. However, one common challenge pops up again and again: how do you record those transitions accurately and cleanly into a path that can be replayed or exported?
This is where SAMSON’s Record path animation effect comes in. It allows you to capture the exact atomic movements induced by other animations such as Assemble, Dock, Move Atoms, or Simulate. The result? A clean, reusable trajectory that doesn’t require tedious manual tracking.
Why Use Record Path?
The Record path animation adds a dedicated track in the Animator. This track records atomic positions during your molecule’s transition. If you’re adjusting docking mechanisms, assembling molecular subunits, or visualizing reaction pathways, you can let Record path document everything automatically, frame by frame.
Once recording is complete, you can export this trajectory as a Path node in your document. This provides you with a traceable, replayable version of the motion that can be visualized with Play path or Play reverse path animations, or used as a basis for further simulations or educational visuals.
How to Use It
Here’s a simple workflow to record a path:
- In the Animation panel, double-click the Record path animation effect. This creates a keyframe at your current frame.
- Make sure the Record path track is after all animations that modify atom positions. The Animator executes animations from top to bottom.
- As you play your animation, the track will begin to show green segments—this indicates that positions are being recorded. Red segments mean positions haven’t yet been recorded or are outdated.
For performance reasons, you can temporarily disable the recording without deleting the path. Just right-click the animation in the Animator and toggle Enable recording.
Exporting the Path
After successfully recording the trajectory, you can convert it to a persistent Path object:
- In the animation’s Inspector, click Create path.
- Or, right-click the Record path animation in the Animator and select Create path.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve found yourself wishing you could recreate an atomic movement exactly as it happened, without rerunning simulations or animating manually, Record path can save you time and effort. It’s particularly useful when your animation is the result of multiple steps, such as docking followed by structural adjustments or interactive manipulations.
To learn more, visit the full documentation page: Record path documentation
SAMSON and all SAMSON Extensions are free for non-commercial use. You can download SAMSON at www.samson-connect.net.