# Saving animation of molecular rotation

**URL:** <https://discuss.avogadro.cc/t/saving-animation-of-molecular-rotation/3711>\
**Category:** General Discussion\
**Created:** [January 20, 2022, 3:18pm UTC](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/t/saving-animation-of-molecular-rotation/3711 "2022-01-20T15:18:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![revealer](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@revealer](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/u/revealer)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 3:18pm UTC](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/t/saving-animation-of-molecular-rotation/3711/1 "2022-01-20T15:18:39Z")

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Is there any possibility that Avogadro might save such rotation as a movie file or animated GIF etc?

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**Author:** ![Thomas](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/user_avatar/discuss.avogadro.cc/thomas/32/3403_2.png) [@Thomas](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/u/Thomas)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 9:30pm UTC](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/t/saving-animation-of-molecular-rotation/3711/2 "2022-01-20T21:30:51Z")

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Perhaps this is possible _indirectly_ because you may export what you see either as `.pov` for [PovRay](http://www.povray.org/), or as `.vrml` (e.g., import into [blender](https://www.blender.org/)). Blender (as program) occasionally is mentioned in the reports/lab classes in the _Journal of Chemical Education_, e.g., “Gaussian-2-Blender” in September 2021 by Emmanuel Echeverri-Jimenez and Maria Oliver-Hoyo, _J. Chem. Educ._ **2021** , _98_, 3348–3355 ([doi 10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00515](https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00515)) which may serve as inspiration.

For the quick generation of .gif, I still prefer Jmol (accessed from the program’s console) where animations are recorded by the `capture` format, and models moved/rotated/scaled by the `move` command. You may complement this [youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEyhvhOK9u0) by IIT Bombay 2015 (much more than a mere starter) with Jmol’s [command reference](https://chemapps.stolaf.edu/jmol/docs/).

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**Author:** ![revealer](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@revealer](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/u/revealer)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 3:58pm UTC](https://discuss.avogadro.cc/t/saving-animation-of-molecular-rotation/3711/3 "2022-01-27T15:58:11Z")

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Many Thanks- I am now happily importing pdb files and vrl files into blender for animation. I can even simulate mechanisms of reactions if I use the vrl format.