[PyMOL] trouble with fading for sticks in a movie

Hi,

I have previously been able to do a "fake" fade on surface transparency by
doing the following:
where "testout" is an object in pymol.

mdo 449: set transparency, 1, testout
mdo 550: show surface, testout
mdo 551: set transparency, 0.7, testout
mdo 552: set transparency, 0.6, testout
mdo 553: set transparency, 0.5, testout
mdo 554: set transparency, 0.4, testout
mdo 555: set transparency, 0.3, testout
mdo 556: set transparency, 0.3, testout
mdo 557: set transparency, 0.1, testout
mdo 558: set transparency, 0, testout


The surface will slowly come to life between frames 449 and 558. However,
if I try doing this with
"set stick_transparency", nothing happens. I have tried to do this using
scenes, however the object simply disappears instead of fading. I would
love some help on this. I am interested in python scripting as well as I
know a little python but not sure how to implement it in pymol. Thanks!


-------------
Yarrow Madrona

Graduate Student
Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Dept.
University of California, Irvine
Natural Sciences I, Rm 2403
Irvine, CA 92697