[Chimera-users] Movie Making in Chimera

Tue Dec 8 03:59:13 PST 2015

Dear Chimera Support Team,

I have a question regarding movie making in Chimera: I would like to be able to record a movie, based on a chimera script, and have exact frame-wise control over what is recorded.

Chimera seems to make a funny distinction between "internal trajectory frames" and "movie frames" which I don't get. I would like a one-to-one correspondence between these, no interpolation or anything like that.

More precisely, I would like to be able to do the following, in strict sequential order:

- Load some models,
  - rotate one of the models,
  - move one of the models,
  - capture a movie frame of the resulting configuration,
and again
  - rotate one of the models,
  - move one of the models,
  - capture a movie frame of the resulting configuration,
etc.

I have tried using "perframe" commands, where each perframe operation comprises a "move" and a "turn" command, and has the option "frames 1". Still, I don't get exactly what I want: the resulting movie doesn't consist of the number of frames I'd expect - movie encoding seems to start before all commands have actually been executed. I can see a message saying that the movie has been finished, while things are still moving.

I've provided a code snippet below.

Moreover, rather than using "perframe", surely there must be a more elegant and natural way of enforcing sequential execution of commands, as one would expect from any normal programming language.

Thank you very much in advance for your help,
Best regards,
Florian Drechsler

--------------------------

Florian Drechsler
Universität Ulm
Institut für Biophysik
Albert-Einstein-Allee 11
D-89081 Ulm
------------------------

==============================================================

# This is a command file to be opened from UCSF Chimera.
# It loads several molecules from PDB files, and arranges them in docked conformations.
# These conformations are the result of a Bayesian inference carried out by FastNPS.
# Upon execution of this file, Chimera will generate a movie clip showing a set of docked
# conformations, in the manner of a flip-book.

# This file can be edited if any particular colour or lighting options etc. are desired.

# --- load PDBs ---
open ./2waq.pdb
open ./1D3U_movedtoCentrePol_noTFB.pdb

##################################################################################
#####   E d i t a b l e    s e c t i o n    for custom viewing preferences   #####
#####                 (colour, lighting, background, etc.)                   #####
##################################################################################

set bg_color white

color dark slate gray #0:.A-Q

2dlabel create title text "Samples of configurations of docking scenario, 2WAQ vs. 1D3U" xpos 0.04 ypos 0.92 color black

2dlabel create sub text "Motion does not represent dynamics" size 12 xpos 0.04 ypos 0.88 color black

##################################################################################
#####            E n d    o f    e d i t a b l e    s e c t i o n            #####
##################################################################################
move x 14.5577 model #1
move y 10.7525 model #1
move z 13.1320 model #1
windowsize 800 600
scale 0.8
movie record supersample 3
move  0.9432,3.3367,-3.9733 model #1
wait 
move  -3.1264,-2.5812,5.6072 model #1
wait 
move  -2.9523,2.8959,-3.9907 model #1
wait 
move  -14.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1

perframe "move  -14.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframeperframe "move  -14.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  -14.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  -14.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  -14.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
wait 
move  8.4475,0.1,0.1 model #1

perframe "move  2.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  2.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  2.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  2.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  2.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  2.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  2.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  2.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe
perframe "move  2.0968,0.5720,-12.9560 model #1; turn y 1 model #0;" frames 1
~perframe

wait 
move  8.4475,4.5142,16.4771 model #1
turn z 2
wait 
move  -12.9187,-0.7126,-7.8443 model #1
turn z 2
wait 
move  9.5982,-3.2342,8.4843 model #1
turn z 2
wait 
move  3.2604,3.3466,-4.2558 model #1
turn z 2
wait 
move  0.5383,-1.8787,5.0346 model #1
turn z 2
wait 
move  -0.6887,1.1472,-2.6070 model #1
turn z 2
wait 
move  -0.0759,-1.7268,1.1365 model #1
turn z 2
wait 
move  -3.1444,0.7922,-1.0015 model #1
turn z 2
wait 
move  5.2841,0.0361,0.6118 model #1
turn z 2
wait 
movie encode docking.mp4 bitrate 10000 framerate 60