What's MOPs?
Video courtesy of Paul Esteves
MOPs is a motion graphics toolkit for Houdini. It's a collection of HDAs (custom nodes) that are meant to make common motion graphics tasks such as local transformations, moving on paths, masking operations, and more much easier. Though MOPs is primarily a tool for motion graphics, it's also used by many VFX companies large and small to make traditional FX work easier. MOPs operates entirely natively within Houdini and is not a closed system, and can be used interchangeably with native SOPs. MOPs is free and open source, and always will be.
You can get MOPs on Github here: https://github.com/toadstorm/MOPS [github.com]
What's MOPs Plus?
MOPs Plus is a commercial, closed-source add-on to MOPs. It has a number of higher level tools for things like typography and cameras, and also extends the MOPs toolset into DOPs so you can better direct particles, RBDs, and Vellum simulations. MOPs Plus is a permanent license; yearly payments are for updates, not for the software license itself. You can pause the subscription at any time if you don't want or need to update.
You can create an account and purchase MOPs Plus here: https://www.motionoperators.com/info/mopsplus/ [www.motionoperators.com]
Where can I get more information about MOPs and MOPs Plus?
- The MOPs homepage [www.motionoperators.com] has a number of useful links.
- The MOPs Wiki [github.com] on GitHub has an overview of every single node in MOPs and MOPs Plus, installation guides, and more.
- The MOPs Discord server [discord.gg] has a growing community of users that can offer help quickly.
- There's a MOPs phpBB forum [forum.motionoperators.com] for people who prefer that format.
- This presentation [www.youtube.com] from May 2020's Houdini HIVE gives an overview of what MOPs does and has some sample scenarios.
- There's an in-progress free tutorial series on MOPs Plus [www.youtube.com] that's also a good way to get an overview of the new tools.
- Or, just reach out and ask me! You can contact me at henry@motionoperators.com.