Easter Hols

Before the Easter Holidays Anja asked me to animate some fish. I told Anja that I only really joined her group for Post Production as i mainly only wanted to do editing and copositing. I told her that I have never done an animation in Maya before. She assured me that it was 'easy' and I wouldn't have to worry, but I am still unsure as to why she would still assign this project to me as I am sure there are other peope with more experience in animating than me. She knew how I felt and insisted I still do it so I decided I'd give it a try anyway. I warned her though that she cannot expect my work to look perfect though if I have never done animatign before.

It is hard to understand exactelywhat Anja asks me to do also as she doesn’t explain things very well. I generally have to ask every possible question in order to get as clear of an idea of what she wants.

From the questions I asked she wants me to animate them to swim on the spot swaying then quickly swim away from each other. Unfortunately she would not give me any idea of actual timing, for example frames/seconds. This makes it both easier to create, but harder to do properly for what Anja envisions. It is easier because I can make up the timings myself but chances are that they won’t be good enough for Anja as I will be completely making up the timings myself.

She also wanted me to make the fish's fins flap around whilst they were stationary. I explained to her that Japanese Koi (or fish in general) wouldn’t sway their fins as if they were swimming ,when sitting still but she asked me to do it anyway. I understand on an aesthetic level why she wants this to happen, although having the fish realistically swim up to each other to stop and sway, without moving their fins, will still look just as aesthetically pleasing, at least to me and wouldn’t look strange. This is such a small thing though that I doubt anyone watching will notice that is unrealistic/strange or even care if they did.

I still thought this was an important thing to bring up though just in case but Anja thought it would look more beautiful if it was swaying on the spot, so that is how I will do it.