What is ModoMotion?
In it’s original form, ModoMotion was one of the first ways to get deformation animation into Modo from Maya, back in version 201. Today, I am pleased to announce ModoMotion Version Two, an evolution of the concept.

What happened to Version One?
That’s a funny story. And one I’d like to share. But I can’t in it’s entirety. The short version is, right before it’s release to the public I received an offer to sell the scripts to… someone. It was a more than fair offer, and I took advantage of it. Part of the agreement was I couldn’t release the software or anything derived from it for a period of time. But that is now over.

Really?
Really.

OK, that’s cool I guess. How does Version Two work?
Well, Modo 301 made life a LOT easier. They added in MDD support, which allows for pretty simple application of vertex deformation to models in Modo. Version Two allows you to export MDDs from Maya.

Doesn’t Maya already have MDD exporters, like Point Oven?
Yes. But they cost money, money people might not have. ModoMotion is free.

Won’t that piss off the Point Oven people?
Maybe. But point oven does a lot more and offers a complete solution for reading and writing a bunch of different data, and for those that need it - $99 is damn cheap. ModoMotion is a simple MDD exporter, for those that just need a basic solution.

So, it’s a plugin?
Nope. It’s a pair of scripts – a MEL script for exporting from Maya, and a Python script for converting the Maya export to real “.mdd” files. It also applies all the MDDs to the appropriate objects in the Modo scene. I will be adding a third script soon which will convert to MDDs independent of Modo, for support in other packages.

Wouldn’t a plugin be faster?
Yes, but by keeping it as scripts, it makes it easy to maintain cross platform support, as well as keep it open to users to expand upon.

When’s it coming out?
February 15th, 2008.