Herding.

Today i am playing around with a herding script in Maya. I have had some success in the past with it and identified possible problems with introducing the script into an already busy scene. I have discovered that the herding animation works best when on a positive zxy space as the locator is world -centric in its make up. (when the fish-in this case- move across the axis they translate by 90 degrees.) I am looking at assigning the herd leader to a separate locator and dis-associating it from the world space. This should solve the problem.

Or not. After running the script for a couple of time i have found it unstable; so i am going to look for another.
This is a shot of the water which i have been experimenting with.

 This shot is with the finished fish model introduced; and the caustics boosted.. The waves at the top should be hidden by the 'screen'. I have also introduced some simple geometry along the z axis to give the illusion of perspective.

I am still going to have to render the fish out separatly; and may have to key the fish in a more traditional way instead of using herds. The position of the light has got to be moved up so it produces more light in more of the scene.