Python for Creative Pipelines - Progress Tracker

Student: Arian Started: February 2026 Curriculum: v1.1

Week 1, Day 4

Date: March 8, 2026 Topic: Nested Data Structures

Summary

• Chaining bracket access for nested dicts: data["a"]["b"]["c"]
• Lists inside dicts: data["objects"][0]["name"]
• Safe nested access with .get() and empty dict defaults
• Comprehensions over nested structures
• Nested comprehensions for flattening

Exercises Completed

1. exercise_01_nested_access.py — Deep access into C4D project config
2. exercise_02_nested_comprehensions.py — Comprehensions over nested scene data

Quiz

Q#	Question	My Answer	Correct Answer	Result
1	Nested dict access	{80}	80	✗
2	List in dict indexing	b	b	✓
3	Chained .get() with missing key	{arnold aac}	aac	✗
4	sum() over nested data	35	35	✓

Score: 2/4

Key Corrections

• Q1: Bare values print without any brackets or braces
• Q3: .get() short-circuits — if first key is missing, default kicks in and the chain never reaches the original data

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Week 1, Day 3

Date: February 24, 2026 Topic: Dict Comprehensions

Summary

• Dict comprehension syntax: {key: value for item in iterable}
• Filtering with conditions: {k: v for k, v in data if condition}
• Set comprehension for unique values: {item for item in list}
• .items() for iterating dict key-value pairs
• zip() + dict comprehension for building lookups from parallel lists
• Nested comprehension inside dict comprehension for counting

Exercises Completed

1. exercise_01_basic_dict_comp.py — Scene object lookups, type counting, filtering
2. exercise_02_parameter_maps.py — Object-to-position mapping, filtering, normalization

Quiz

Q#	Question	My Answer	Correct Answer	Result
1	Dict key access via print	sphere: 20	20	✗
2	Filtered dict	{b: 2, c: 3}	{'b': 2, 'c': 3}	✓
3	len() dict comprehension	{5, 5}	{"hello": 5, "world": 5}	✗
4	len() of filtered enumerate dict	3	3	✓

Score: 2/4

Key Corrections

• Q1: Dict key access returns the value only, not key: value
• Q3: Dict keys are the words, values are the lengths — two entries, not one

Key Insight

• Comprehension variables are defined by the for clause — write that first, then build expression and filter around it
• Variable names are arbitrary — position in unpacking determines what data they hold

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Week 1, Day 2

Date: February 23, 2026 Topic: List Comprehensions

Summary

• Basic list comprehensions: [expression for item in list]
• Filtered comprehensions: [expression for item in list if condition]
• Nested comprehensions: [expression for x in list1 for y in list2]
• Generator expressions inside sum()
• Comprehensions vs for loops — same result, one line

Exercises Completed

1. exercise_01_basic_comprehensions.py — Frame timing, even frames, labels
2. exercise_02_scene_filtering.py — C4D scene object filtering
3. exercise_03_transform_pipeline.py — Render path generation

Quiz

Q#	Question	My Answer	Correct Answer	Result
1	Filter even numbers	[2, 4, 6]	[2, 4, 6]	✓
2	Rewrite loop as comprehension	upper([for...])	[name.upper() for name in list]	✗
3	scaled[0] value	0	0.333...	✗
4	Nested comprehension count	2	6 (every combination)	½
5	Filtered list output	Light	["Light"]	✗

Score: 1.5/5

Key Corrections

• Comprehension syntax: [expression for item in list] — expression comes first
• Trace math instead of guessing: 10/30 = 0.333, not 0
• Nested comprehension = every combination (2×3=6), not zip pairing
• Comprehensions always produce lists, even with one result

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Week 1, Day 1

Date: February 22, 2026 Topic: List Slicing, enumerate(), zip()

Summary

• List slicing with [start:stop:step]
• Negative indexing for counting from the end
• enumerate() for index + value pairs
• zip() for pairing parallel lists
• Nesting enumerate(zip()) for indexed pairs

Exercises Completed

1. exercise_01_slicing.py — Audio sample slicing
2. exercise_02_enumerate_zip.py — Render layer pairing
3. exercise_03_creative_data.py — Keyframe data manipulation

Quiz

Q#	Question	My Answer	Correct Answer	Result
1	samples[-2:]	40, 50	[40, 50]	✓
2	enumerate print(i) only	1 null, 2 cube...	1, 2, 3	✗
3	zip() mismatched lengths	Trims to shortest	Stops at shortest	✓
4	Reverse a list	frames[::-1]	frames[::-1]	✓
5	list(zip(a,b))[1]	1, 10	(2, 20)	✗

Score: 3/5

Key Corrections

• Q2: Read exactly what print() outputs — only i was printed, not name
• Q5: zip() produces tuples, indexing the result list returns a whole tuple