WK 3-Swinging arm

At first we learnt to correct any errors or adjust controls made in the previous task. The second part of the tutorial was the swinging arm, here i learnt about pivots and how parenting objects was critical in order for different parts of the body to move,point constraints were briefly discussed in the demonstration, however i personally could not make sense of my limbs in the outliner as i had parented them in the wrong structure of the hierachy, i reconstructed these items and ensured they fell correctly and later set keyframes in order for the arm to swing i used the references below to ensure i made correct changes to the short animation.
The first reference i used was a page from Richard williams animators survival kit were the key framing of the hands are shown.

This was usefull to locate the keyframing positionswhen the arm swings.
The second image was from a book called bone anatomy which i found on this website:

This image made the anatomy of the arm clear to allow fluid realistic movement in my characters arm.Also when considering joints referance gives a clear idea were pivots should be placed .

This was important as i could correct any previous mistakes, and with reference to professional work also the pivoting and parenting was interesting to me as they apply to many objects and characters shown in many animations were legs arms and any other pivoted objects are used, this tutorial also helped me builds up knowledge of the software and its capabilities.
For this task i felt i had created a swinging arm well as it seemed straight forward however i felt as though the arm was too floppy as it swung forward which let the overall piece down as shown below:

As for my extended task of researching into my own object with pivots i chose to do a locomotive steam train wheel area were two wheels would power the movement of the wheels based on pivots and parenting practices. I found that there were certain elements which seemed to advanced where expressions were more likely to be used, my first attempt of this worked well however compared to professional practices the wheels moved far too quickly , on my second attempt the wheels did not stay parallel.

Here i could see that i needed to develop and spend more time in this area as in a lot of aspects of animation these techniques are used daily, in order to gain further understanding i had a tutorial to show my work and correct errors made, well doing the tutorial i understood new ways to create a more effective steam train using relationship editor, expression editors and pivots and parenting which was extremely useful, which i can now apply to my own work in the future.

Wk 2 Bouncing ball

This tutorial allowed me to gain a more in depth understanding of the values in which one must consider to give a realistic interpretation of a bouncing ball, this was usefull and the basic principles of animation were put into practice, i learnt how important the graph editor and the outliner are in this line of work also how its alot easier to name all new properties in order to keep work in order, the outliner and graph editor proved to be crucial in this task in order to create purky bounces and to create a  ball control for the stretch and squash parts of this task. I learnt basic rigging aspects to apply to my ball control , also the use of different tangents and how they worked was helpful and i believe that all aspects will be used in future practices.

With reference to professional work such as the Pixar short, - for the birds i feel these practices learnt are extremely useful to my own interests , in this short you can see how rigging and basic principles of animation has been adapted to it when the birds are squashed together and fling up the controls give a realistic interpretation of the birds being flung into the air also how they land, with this in mind i would like to able to create such effects within my animation were possible in the future. Here on this link you can see how professional practices have been accomplished using these principles in CGI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP8C2xSsngo
As reference to this pixar short, i would qualify my work as successful, i feel my rigging went well and when i understood how interactive creation can effect my work, i created more military controls in order to gain more precise squash and squeeze factors in the bounce of the ball , also taking into consideration what type of ball was being bounced ,the weight  and movement. when looking into research and references i also found a video by kiel Friggins ,called monstera deliciosa, he was showing his french film at Annecy in 2009 , here i found although 2d animation was used to create the piece, the bubbles in the introduction scene and  change shape- squash and squeeze as his character runs through the forest and i found this to be a very good reference to how important the simple principles are and how effective they can be , a clip of his work is shown below:

The main area i did identify that i can develop further was the rotation of the ball when rolling at the end and gradually stopping also ensuring the ball bounces and rolls in time to give a realistic look.
i plan to address this towards the end of this week to the best of my ability.
Creating a rig from scratch was challenging and after making errors and correcting them in order for the rig to fully function was an achievement in itself and gave me confidence and enthusiasm to contiue doing CGI as my specialist option as i addressed this factor as i was creating the project i do not feel as though i need to go back and address any aspects of the rig.

Wk 1- taster

First week, we had a taster with the basics of C.G.I animation, here i learnt the way in which simple polygon shapes  can be merged together , the different elements of a single objects that can be used to distort an object and to change size and shapes . a general understanding of tools and there performance were introduced via presentation which gave me a clear understanding what can be accomplished when time and effort is put into practice.
This was important to me, as i had originally planned to do stop motion, however seeing this presentation excited me and i felt that by taking C.G.I as my specialist option i could learn a great deal and have fun with this as its always been my favourite type of animation.
In the future this subject could be helpfull as it may take me into many areas of the C.G.I industry, from games and special effects to cartoons character modeling or a general specialist topic such as rigging or lip syncing using controls and expressions.
My objections for this week is to research into my specialist option, i am also going to look into relevant software that will help me in this topic.