Installation
Software required for the Protein Visualisation Workshop.
Installing Blender
Download and install the latest 3.3.1 LTS release of Blender from the downloads page.
Blender is optimised to run on basically any computer. The faster your computer (usually the better the graphics card), the faster it will be able to render the final image, but actually working in the 3D scene and setting everything up should run on basically any computer.
If you are using a Mac, ensure you download the correct Intel or ARM version of Blender.
If you are are using a newer M1 or M2 mac, download the ARM version, otherwise download the Intel version.
Installing Molecular Nodes
Download the latest release of Molecular Nodes (currently v0.13.0). This is the addon that I have created for importing .pdb files and other structural biology data like molecular dynamics trajectories into Blender.
There are other plugins that have previously been developed, but most are currently not being developed and this is the only one that leverages the new Geometry Nodes system and enabled import of molecular dynamics trajectories and structural morphs exported from PyMol and ChimeraX as multi-model .pdb files.
When downloading .zip files on Safari on a Mac, Apple tries to be helpful and automatically unzips the file. To install the file inside of Blender, you must have the .zip file and not the unzipped folder. Either download with a different browser (i.e. FireFox) or zip the file manually yourself for installation into Blender.
Follow the detailed installation instructions about how to install the first part of Molecular Nodes.
The optional MDAnalysis installation is not required for this workshop. Feel free to follow the instructions and install it to enable import of molecular dynamics trajectories, but we will likely not be going over that aspect in the workshop.
Installing PyMol or ChimeraX
You likely already have either PyMol, ChimeraX or VMD installed. Any version of any of these programs should be fine, and they will only be used in the first part of part of the workshop. You will be exporting either 3D models or .pdb files from these programs to import into Blender.