Fish swim animation

I found a good tutorial on rigging a fish and it's a pretty quick solution. The link for the tutorial can be found here: http://www.3dfiggins.com/tuts/Fish/

Draft of opening scene

Animatic for Timing

This is a rough animatic to get a feel for the timing of the animation. My next animatic will be more complete containing colors and music.

Putting the project together

There are four major segments of my animation with transitions that bring them together. Each segment will run for roughly the same amount of time and the transitions will be considerably shorter. Placing each segment and transition in individual layers within a scene will make the rendering stage simpler and less time consuming.

Another solution will be to use a different scene for each segment including the transition to the next. With less shaders and models in the scene render time will be greatly reduced. This workflow would keep me well organized and more efficient.

Style - color test 4

Style - color test 3

Style - color test 2

Style - color test 1

Revised project plan

The project will begin with an image of a tunnel that is reflected in an eye. The eye will not be visible before the camera zooms out. The camera will zoom out to reveal the majority of the eye and move toward the tear duct. As the camera reveals this portion of the eye, a tear will begin to form and fall. The camera will follow the tear looking at it from a top-down view and continuing the rotation until it is on the other side of the tear. At this point the tear will begin to form into a fish and other fish will begin to appear.

Following the group of fish, seaweed will appear as the fish continue to swim. Traveling through the seaweed various shapes and images will form in the murky background representing varying thoughts. After several seconds of this the camera will zoom on a segment of the seaweed and travel down its length.

The grooves of the seaweed will form into a road with double yellow lines down the center and rumble strips on the side. Each rumble strip will form into a music staff with notes, and the music that has been playing lightly in the background will become louder. The road will lead back to the small tunnel seen in the opening scene.

Change of Plans

After reviewing my initial idea with professor Halbstein I would like my project to be more abstract. David advised me to read a segment or cliffnote of Ulyesses by James Joyce for inspiration. This novel follows the streams of consciousness of various characters showing how diverse and/or sporadic thoughts can be.