As a tool that facilitates the making of molecular movies,
eMovie is a key stop-gap in the niche of intuitive molecular
animation. Ideally, the next-generation molecular moviemaking
software would either be a stand-alone program or
an intuitive, powerful GUI built directly into an existing
molecular visualization program. This new program would
function similarly to modern movie-editing software, incorporating
a visual storyboard or timeline that a user can
both scroll through and edit through ‘drag and drop’. In
addition to the capabilities of eMovie, this (hypothetical)
new program would combine the following features: (i)
facilitation of complex operations such as alterations of
parts of the molecules and chemical reactions; (ii) support
of automatic docking of multiple objects while avoiding
collisions; (iii) freely placeable, visually appealing labels;
(iv) inclusion of molecular dynamics trajectories; (v) the
option to include, standard, insertable schematic non-molecule
objects symbolizing lipid membranes or proteins
interacting with unsolved structures; (vi) a zoom out function
to display processes on a cellular level; (vii) simple
addition of audio commentary; and (viii) seamless interaction
with other molecular graphics programs such as
CCP4MG and iSee.