Sunday, December 24th, 2017 Posted by Jim Thacker

Eric Mootz makes all Mootzoid plugins free downloads


Veteran tools developer Eric ‘Mootzoid’ Mootz has made all of his plugins available to download for free.

The collection mainly consists of Softimage add-ons, including particle tools and a fluid solver, but also includes particle meshing and geometry cache viewing tools that run on Cinema 4D, Maya and/or Modo.

Some of the Softimage community’s most popular tools
Over the past decade, Eric Mootz has developed some of the Softimage community’s best-loved plugins, earning a nomination for a 3D World CG Award in the process.

Although the pace of development slowed in recent years, with Mootz focusing more of his energy on his work with Fabric Software on the now-defunct Fabric Engine, they remain powerful tools.

In a post on SI-Community.com, Mootz attributes his decision to wind up his plugin business to the decline in sales following Autodesk’s end of life announcement for Softimage.

“Since Autodesk EOL’ed Softimage, I have been struggling, but [I am fine] and am now moving on to something else,” he writes.

“It was a great time – nearly ten years! – and I cannot express how much fun it was to work on the plugins and with you, the users, and to see what great stuff you guys did.”



Powerful tools for Softimage, plus particle meshing and cache reading tools for other apps
Key Softimage-only simulation plugins in the collection include flocking solver emFlock2, particle attraction system emNewton2, and gaseous fluid solver emFluid5.

Particle data generated by the simulation tools can then be processed by point-cloud-to-geometry converter emTopolizer2 and point cloud renderer emRPC4.

There is also a collection of bonus tools, emTools, and an experimental tree generator, emTree.

Cross-application tools include particle meshing system emPolygonizer5, which runs on Maya, Modo and Softimage; and geometry cache reader emReader, which runs on Cinema 4D, Modo, Maya and Softimage.

The latter enables uses to load and render caches – including particle caches in the widely used .bin format – without the need to import them, fixing common issues like holes and non-manifold edges automatically.

Availability and system requirements
All of Eric Mootz’s plugins are now available to download for free from his website via the link below.

The Softimage tools are compatible with Softimage 2012+; the other tools are compatible with Cinema 4D R17+, Maya 2017+ and Modo 901+ respectively.

Download Eric Mootz’s plugins for free from the Mootzoid website