Axi5 thank you for so extended answer! :) It could be a little difficult for me at this stage - I'm not a pro animator atm :( At the same time, I've found a guide for Blender, where a person somehow utilized MDD feature. I don't know Blender, but probable it could help to generate the same approach for Modo: Blender to…
I'm no blender user, but looking at the documentation, shape keys seem to be blend shapes/morph targets. Whatever you want to call them, the concept is the same. So if that script/tool doesn't work for you, you can try follow my steps above.