Rigging In Maya 1.0

 Hierarchies are the order in which geometry is organized together, they are parented together, there is always an child and a parent, the parent moves with the child , but the child can move abit but not to far from the parent, like a dog on a lead.Children are always added to the parent , if connecting to another piece the parent would then be a child also , the parent would move , and the two children follow, but the lower parent can still move around the parent and the child can move around that parent.Hierarchies are displayed in the "Outliner".Parented objects can be animated, for example an cylinder can be made to rotate around a sphere, it would need the pivot of the cylinder moved into the centre of the sphere and would enable it to be rotated around 360".

For are first series of lessons we learnt Rigging, which is the art of creating a skeleton structure to create animations , the skeletons are placed within geometry of models , and binded to the "Skin" similar to how muscles/bones and the skin are joined.Other elements such as muscle weights to create a lifelike realism to the movements, such as having a stopper on the rotation , so it can't rotate all the way around, for a neck joint , as an example.

Joints are the main piece of creating a skeleton, they are used from the main joint such as a wrist, then towards the fingers to the smaller finger pieces.

Joints are made of two sphere shapes and a arrow in between, this has no meaning , apart from to show the direction the joint is going.