This was fun to animate and annoying to render. Water and fire was done using Bifrost liquid and Bifrost presets for fire, and the grass was made using Xgen interactive groom. All other figures were made using Maya and Arnold models and shaders or with models given below in the sources. Lighting was done with Arnold's area lights and physical sky lights. After-effects and post-production was done in Adobe Premiere Pro. Movement is a mix of keyframing and dynamics to achieve realism and appealing animation in different sections.
PSA for any future CS417 students: use the media center computers if you'd like to use Arnold.
sources:
birds: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-obj-mode-bird-quad-triangles/1100939
shark: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/white-shark-3d-model-1801738#
chicken: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/christmas-chicken-grey-art-3d-1266316
sink: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-model-kitchen-sink-1757550
cannon: https://www.cgtrader.com/items/97190/download_page
music:
Boggly Woods (from 0:00)- Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVUUxocNtY
Sirena Beach (from (0:00)- Super Mario Sunshine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eImwRIwO2HI
Jaws Theme-(from 2:30) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9QTSyLwd4w
Fireplace Burning (from 0:00)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VB4bgiB0yA
1812 Overture (from 12:04)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8