Hi, I have a couple questions related to working with protein models in Blender.

I'm having trouble importing a VRML97 file of a surface representation of a protein created using Chimera. The colours of the surface mesh doesn't load properly.

Also, can someone explain how to properly UV unwrap the colours of a protein? Is the same procedure done when unwrapping a protein regardless of representation (ie. surface representation, ribbon representation, stick-ball representation)?

Let me know if you'd like me to further explain my questions..

Thanks,

Ryan

Hi Ryan,

try to import .wrl files exported from PyMOL. The vertex colours are imported properly.

Raluca

Hi, I see the texture on the protein.. is there a way to generate a UV unwrapped image from the surface (or ribbon) colours?

Ryan

Hi!
- Assign a material to the object and enable VColPaint and Shadeless;
- Unwrapp the object;
- In the UV Editor, create an image to bake the colours to;
- In the Render button, in the Bake tab enable Textures and then press BAKE.

Raluca

rdoherty wrote:

Hi, I have a couple questions related to working with protein models in Blender. I'm having trouble importing a VRML97 file of a surface representation of a protein created using Chimera. The colours of the surface mesh doesn't load properly.... Thanks, Ryan

Hi Ryan,
A little late, but for other people interested, you can generate molecular models with all types of proper color-coding (including ones like color-per-residue that require a plugin for PyMOL) directly in Blender using our lab's plugin ePMV (the embedded Python Molecular Viewer). Here is a link for overview, download, and install instructions.
http://epmv.scripps.edu

You can also use http://bioblender.eu to generate molecular models and sophisticated animations for forcefields, etc.