[chimerax-users] Discrete coloring and secondary structure assignment.

[Elaine Meng]

HI Reza,
You cannot change that - the secondary structure ribbon shape is defined to change in the middle of a single residue, and the coloring is per residue.  Some other programs also work this way (including Pymol, I believe).

If you want the coloring to end abruptly with the secondary structure ribbon shape change, use Chimera instead.

In your image, the ribbons look sort of smudgy/sooty, suggesting you are using "soft" lighting.  In general, ambient-occlusion lighting may not work well for sparse representations like ribbons and sticks; they are best for space-filling representations like spheres and surfaces.  You could see if "lighting gentle" is any better than soft, but if it still looks smudgy, other lighting may be better (e.g. "light simple" or "light simple shadows true").  If that seems too shiny to you, could also try "material dull".

<http://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/lighting.html>
<http://rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/material.html>

I hope this helps,
Elaine
-----
Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D.                       
UCSF Chimera(X) team
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
University of California, San Francisco

> On Aug 13, 2020, at 3:52 PM, Reza Khayat <rkhayat at ccny.cuny.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to generate a ribbons diagram where the secondary structures are defined by user and colored by user. I'm running into a problem where half of the amino acid is assigned the secondary structure and the entire residue is assigned the color. This makes for a strange image. Attached is an image. Notice how the coloring starts before the secondary structure.  Any help is appreciated.​
> 
> Best wishes,
> Reza
> 
> Reza Khayat, PhD
> Assistant Professor 
> City College of New York
> Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
> New York, NY 10031
> <example.png>_______________________________________________
> ChimeraX-users mailing list
> ChimeraX-users at cgl.ucsf.edu
> Manage subscription:
> https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/mailman/listinfo/chimerax-users