Why MOPs?

MOPs started in 2018 as a collaboration between Henry Foster (Toadstorm) and Moritz Schwind (Entagma), who were both asked the question “Why is motion graphics so hard to do in Houdini?” Their vision was to leverage Houdini as a powerful and intuitive tool for design, allowing artists to work freely without worrying about the math. After about half a year of development in secret, the first version of MOPs was released in June 2018. It’s grown since to be the weapon of choice for Houdini-based motion designers and a powerful tool for visual effects artists across commercials, film, television, live events, and video games.

Henry Foster (Toadstorm)

Henry is the solo developer of MOPs and MOPs Plus. He has been working as a Technical Artist in California and Oregon since 2006, bouncing around between commercial design and film studios both large and small as a lighter, rigger, effects artist, and pipeline/tools developer. He discovered Houdini around 2011 and has been unable to put it down since. He also has a long-running technical art blog, Toadstorm’s Nerdblog. Henry likes baking, brewing and anything fermentation, cats, and Islay whisky.


Special thanks goes to Moritz Schwind, Adam Swaab, Jake Rice, Ian Farnsworth, Kevin Weber, Matt Tillman, and Luca Scheller.