How to color based on b-factor for all the frames in one object in Pymol?

Question

I load a protein.pdb file into Pymol. This file has multiple frames (or states), and with different b-factor values at different frames at the PDB file b-factor columns.

After running the spectrum b command, the colouring is only based on the last state of the object.

So can I colour the frames differently using their corresponding b-factor values? In that case, I can see the colour changing throughout the frame playing.

In case someone wants to create a PDB of multiple frames, you can do like this:

MODEL        1
ATOM ......
ATOM ......
ENDMDL
MODEL        2
ATOM ......
ATOM ......
ENDMDL

Answer 1

Well, didnt find a wat to do it in PyMol (even with spectrum b, blue_white_red, minimum= 0 , maximum=40, byres=1 on split_states test I get same colors on all the 4 models even if the b factors of the 4 models are different).

Ended up using on my test.pdb hosted here https://file.io/Y37LZ3El6UyR with Biopython mini-script to split test.pdb into 4 models pdbs with code:

import Bio
print('\n\n------------------------------------------------')
print('\n  Biopython Version : ',  Bio.__version__)
print('\n\n------------------------------------------------')

from Bio.PDB import PDBParser
from Bio.PDB.PDBIO import PDBIO


parser = PDBParser(QUIET=False, PERMISSIVE=True)
struct = parser.get_structure('test', 'test.pdb')
print('\nstructure : ', struct ,';  struct.id :',struct.id,   ';   len(structure) : ', len(struct))

for i in range(len(struct)):
    io=PDBIO()
    io.set_structure(struct[i])
    io.save(struct.id+str(i).zfill(4)+".pdb")

and assembled movie out of the four models uploaded as 4 independent objects in PyMol, colored by spectrum b, blue_white_red, minimum= 0 , maximum=40, byres=1, as described in Exercise 2: Scene based Movie in PyMOL Moviemaking Tutorial.