Tutorial: The Eye

[Pixolator]

There are many techniques that can be used to create an eyeball and I have chosen to explain one that is easy to use and quite effective…



1. SET UP: Select Sphere3D tool. Select material ToyPlastic .Draw a sphere in the center of your canvas. Press ‘t’ in order to enter edit mode. Open MODIFERS>INTIALIZE submenu. Set mesh resolution to HDivid=256, VDivide=128. Open TOOL>MODIFIERS>SYMMETRY sub menu. Press Z and R with Radial count set to 40. The default-editing tip is very good for feathered (smooth) painting on the object, but because we want to get a texture that will resemble the pattern in the eye, we need to modify the editing tip. Open the TRANSFORM>MODIFIERS submenu and set the curve top resemble the image:STEP 1 . We further want to have the editing tip to be noisy so we set the NOISE slider to maximum.
2. DARK PAINT: In the COLOR menu, select white color and press the FILL OBJECT in order to prep the sphere for painting. Select black color. Set DRAW SIZE=10 , RGB Intensity=10 and turn off ZADD. Draw on the sphere by clicking on the center of the sphere and dragging out untill you get the desired diameter (image:STEP 2)
3. WHITE PAINT: Select white color and draw the outer band. The white band can be added to the inner part of the eye or to the outer radius. (image:STEP 3)
4. MATERIAL: Optional: you can modify the material to reflect an environment map (or any other image). Open the MATERIAL>MODDIFERS, set reflectivity to –30 and change the reflection curve to look like the image:STEP4. We are using negative reflection because it allows the intensity of the reflection to be based on the color intensity of the object. In this case, we want the dark surface of the eye to be more reflective than the white surface, in order to do so, we modify the reflection curve to have high reflectivity for dark colors (left side of the curve) and no reflectivity for bright colors (the right side of the curve).
5. VARIATIONS: Try repeating these steps with varying editing tip curve and noise intensity. Choose varying RGB intensities and DRAW size. As you trying different combination you’ll find that by modifying few controls it possible to get wide range of effects. When you are done, snapshot the eye into the canvas and use the freehand brushed to add some imperfections and character to the eye (The use of free hand brushes is very important to the final quality of the eye).When you creating an image that uses these eyes, I recommend that you snapshot the eyes in a separate layer. This will allow you to easily paint and modify the eyes without impacting the rest of the creature face.

One thing to note (and I am sure most would be aware of that, but nonetheless, its worth mentioning) is that is important to apply the final touchups to the eye after it has been placed within the creature head. An eye that looks perfect by itself may not look good at all when placed in the eye socket. It has to do with the color of the eye, the orientation and size of the pupil. When I create a 3D eye, I get it as far as 80% from completion, the rest (and the most important) 20% , are added while the eye is in place.

I hope you’ll find this helpful
-Pixolator

P.S. There are other 'Eye' tutorials that were created by southern and kazbear.
southern and kazbeart: If possible, please post your tutorial (or a link to your tutorial)in this thread.

[Stacey]

Thank you Pixolator!

[Jaycephus]

Additional Eye Tutorials:

Glen Southern's Eye Tutorial

Gandalf's Eye and Nose Tutorial

Mr. Braun's Eye Texture Tutorial

Winged One's Realistic Eye script

ZStevie's Texture Master Eye Tutorial

Mentat's Monstrous Eyes - scripts and tutorial

Another Southern Eye Tutorial

In the process of looking for Ken B.'s Bip thread that has an eye tutorial, I found these and thought I would add links to them here. Still haven't found Bip!

EDIT:

Ken Brilliant's Bip: an example of a two-part eye

[Ron Harris]

only one problem with the above, my Z King...I just sent you mail about it....something small but you will wanna know

[PusGhetty]

And yet another eye tutorial by yours truly...
PusG's eyeballZ

[Jaycephus]

ZBrush 1.55b Refraction Eyes:



The pictures above were produced during my testing of this technique, and some of them are better than the others. The first brown eyes are a bit dull, the blue eyes' lenses could be better fitted to the eye, and the second brown eye picture was the last to be created, and may be the best technically, though the blue eye texture and lighting is my favorite.

Notice the difference between the two Blue eye pictures. Changes to the lens' JellyBean material and the lights AFTER placing the lenses resulted in the different looks.

A. Eyeball: Select Sphere3D, and set Initialize:HDivide to 256 and VDivide to 128. Rotate it in the modifiers window up 90 degrees, and Deformation:Flatten in the Y axis about 14 or so. Save this as your eye.

B. Lens: Select Sphere3D, and set Initialize:HDivide to 256 and VDivide to 128. Rotate it in the modifiers window up 90 degrees, move the red cross up to the point where the bottom of the Lens should be, and Deformation:Flatten in the Y axis 100 (up to the red cross). Save this as your lens.

C. Paint the Eye: Paint your eye using the method described by Pixolator in his tutorial (above). No need to worry about shading or highlighting, so just paint an even texture around the pupil. The lens will take care of the light for us.

D. Place and multi-marker the eye. Using the multi-marker, place the lens. At this point, the lens may need to be resized and offset in the Y axis. Use the deformation panel with the lens in Edit mode to get it positioned and sized perfectly in relation to the iris. Resave it. Now you have a lens fitted to an eye, and should never need to adjust it again. Clear the layer. Replace the eye in whatever orientation you desire.

E: Select the lens. Set RGB Intensity to 2 or so, and adjust Refract to 4. Click on the MM to place the lens in perfect alignment with the eye. If the refraction needs adjusting, press CNTL-Z, adjust Refract, and place it again.

F: Create a second layer. Select the lens and set RGB Intensity back to 100. Select the JellyBean material. Use the MM to place the lens on the second layer. Select the Clone tool. Turn Layers Mode on, and Retain Center off. Select Draw:RGB, and turn Draw:Zadd off. Paint over the lens. It should turn clear, revealing the iris beneath it, but retaining the specular highlights. The JellyBean material can now be adjusted to suit.


NOTE: This three-part eye was the best method I could think of to have refraction and strong specular highlights at the same time. It may be possible to obtain these results another way. If anyone has additional tips or techniques, please add them to this thread.

[MrBraun]

Great collections of eyes tutorials!!!

P.S.
Great tecnique Jay !!!

[Jaycephus]

I have figured out that a refractive object can have nice specular highlights:



This eye is a two-part eye with the eyeball and a refractive lens only, not a three-part eye as shown in my previous post.

Even though RENDER:ENVIRONMENT might be off, and your material may have zero Env. Reflection, the RENDER:ENVIRONMENT:FIELD OF VIEW setting still has an effect. Setting this to about 150 will yield the results above, while 180 will result in very small points or glints of light. At the default setting of zero, a light must be directly in front of the eye in order to reflect a highlight back to the camera, and if it does, the highlight is so large that it completely covers and washes-out the eye.

This makes it simpler to do a refractive/reflective eye.

[Zeddicus]

Interesting thread with lot's of great links on doing the pupil/iris. Would be nice if someone covered how to do realistic veins as well, something many of the examples I see are missing.

[Frenchy Pilou]

I remember that
9 pages of study eyes in a lot of prog at CGtalk.
Pilou

[Jaycephus]

Here is a link to a ZScript of a two-part eye similar to what I show in the above post.

[longhornxtreme]

Is there a suitable update to ZB3 for this tutorial? I can set the radial symettry and get the sphere set up properly, but I'm such a newb that I don't understand what curve in ZB3 corresponds with the old curve in (I'm assuming ZB1 since that curve isn't even there in my ZB2, of course I could be wrong...)

I just can't get that same result from the first stroke of pixolator's tutorial...

[nicholasmarks]

anyone figure out how to rotate an eye on it's pivot? I have to draw my gizmo...rotate...then move it back into place. Any got any better ideas?

[yipchoy]

Hi Folks,
when I try to access the links for the eyetuts, all I'm getting is html. Any suggestions as to how to avoid this?
Thanks,
Alan

[industripop]

Is there a suitable update to ZB3 for this tutorial? I can set the radial symettry and get the sphere set up properly, but I'm such a newb that I don't understand what curve in ZB3 corresponds with the old curve in (I'm assuming ZB1 since that curve isn't even there in my ZB2, of course I could be wrong...)

I just can't get that same result from the first stroke of pixolator's tutorial...

*Bump*
Does this tute still hold up? Anyone tried it in ZB3 or would it be a waste of time to give it a try?