Learning Resources > Tutorials > Getting Started with Maya > Live > Lesson 2: Solving with
survey data >
Beyond the lesson
In this lesson you learned how to apply survey constraints to improve the overall solution. Survey constraints are useful not only for orienting your solution, but also for the initial creation of a solution. In these lessons, you solved using track data alone. In more complex shots, the solver may fail unless you use survey constraints to broaden the information that the solver can use.
You cannot tell in advance which survey constraints are needed to solve a shot so it is a good idea to plan for some of the survey constraints before you start tracking. A common example is the Plane constraint, because most shots have coplanar or approximately coplanar points in them.
Do not add too many estimated survey constraints, as they may conflict with each other. When you create a Plane constraint for points that are only approximately coplanar, we recommend you turn on Registration Only in the Solve Survey control panel. This option keeps the solver from forcing the points to be perfectly coplanar.
Maya Live includes other constraints such as camera constraints and infinite points to help with solving. Camera constraints help control the focal length, translation, and rotation of the solved camera. You set them in the Solve control panel Camera settings.
Infinite points are tracked points that you designate as infinitely far from the camera, such as a cloud, mountain, or any feature in the distant background. Knowing a point is infinite, lets the solver use it exclusively for calculating camera movement. Infinite points are helpful for zoom shots, when the camera is static.
For further information and related techniques on Maya Live, refer to the Maya Help.