Enjoys your work very much ！
keep your great work!
So here is how I did the eyes. I’m going to write as if I know what I’m doing (which isn’t always the case:) ) so please forgive me if I write something that is too obvious. Also- the model and texture were created in Zbrush- but the final render was done with Maya and Mental Ray. Hopefully some of what I write can be interpreted for any 3D application.
fig01
fig02
The Geo: In the the fig01 wire frame I’ve included my lowrez mesh, nurbs for lashes/hair, and eyes models. The eye is two parts- an outer and inner eye (see fig 02). The outer eye is just a sphere- this model will be the transparent membrane that surrounds the eye. The inner eye is a second sphere with a bit of detail for the pupil- a concave surface for the Iris and a hole for the pupil. The pupil hole isn’t necessary- it just helps me understand which way the eye points. Making the eye in two parts allows the reflections/highlights of the eye to float above the color of the eye.
fig03
The Outer Eye Material: In fig03 I have the Material Tree shown as it appears in Maya. The purpose of this material is to create the specular quality of the eye (High Lights/Reflections)
- The Bump channel is given a pattern to create random bumpiness- these are just minor imperfections to break up the HL, and can be painted in photoshop or use a procedural like a 2D Fractal. I passed this pattern into Ramp using a radial black texture- this was to soften the bump as it neared the eye center.
- The Specular setup is what gives the eye its high lights and impacts the intensity of the reflection. When making an eye- you want to show the reflection and lighting of the surrounding environment in the eye. Unless dealing with game characters, you also want these specular qualities to remain locked to the position of the lighting, not moving with the painted color image of the eye. Painted high lights will not work well with an animated character- they look fake because, unlike real eyes, as the character’s eye moves the high light moves. I created a texture map that represented the lighting environment for the eye. To keep the texture from moving with the eye, I used a 3D environment node in Maya. I also mixed in a Ramp texture to create a 2D image that decreases the specular intensity near the top to the lid. A contrast and multiplier node were added to allow for some fine tuning. It is possible to create the same look of lighting in the eye using Area lights and possibly some models- but I like the simplicity of this method and its guarantee of good eye high lights.
- For Reflections, I used an intensity adjusted version of the Ramp from the specular channel. I probably could have added in a Fresnel effect here- but since we don’t see the outer edge of the eye its not needed.
fig04
The Inner Eye Material. This is pretty simple material wise- its just a Lambert (non-shiny material) with bump/diffuse/color maps.
4) I think what works best in the color map is the faint blue halo where the Iris and the white of the eye meet. Getting the right values of bluish and pinkish white for the eye was a goal of mine.
5) The Bump was created to accent the details shown in the eye. Not much to say, except a normal map might have worked better.
6) I used to think it looked good to have a recessive hole for the pupil of the eye. After studying the eye more closely- I realized that the hole really looked better to me if it was just pure black at all times with an organic edge. To insure this- I added a diffuse map that blocked out all color info around the pupil of the eye.
That about covers how I did the eye. This work isn’t anything new (I’ve seen other eyes- better ones too 
) but hopefully something I’ve written helps. Thank for the question. Please let me know if there are other things I can help explain.
Craig
i wish i knew how to render. this looks great. nice work
Have followed this since it’s inception, may I say that no
one ever deserved the top row more!!!
Heartfelt congratulations and many thanks for the Maya
workflow!!!
First, let me say the model looks great!
The only other thing I’d like to ask you is… how ultra-realistic are you going for?
Because this looks excellent and gets the point across very well.
But, she’s a bit cartoony in the face. And it reads. If you want to get more realistic, you’ll need to adjust some of the proportions a bit to get it perfect.
For example:
The eyes look great, but they’re a little too wide on the face proportionally.
The cheek bones are set a little bit too high.
Again it looks amazing. If you’re aiming for ultra-realistic there’s some SLIGHT proportions you need to adjust.
Can’t tell you how much i appriciate you showing us how you worked out the eyes =)
Craig, this is a superlative piece of work. Thank you for sharing the process and providing inspiration for those who see it.
I like very much!
Only I think there is something is different in the eye line.
So, becouse my english is terrible, if you give a look at this ani-gif and maybe you can understand me:
I hope you understand: I really like your work
I only want to give a hand.
PS: sorry for my english
Great Render!!! And I love the mini-tutorial on making eyes. It’s always good to see how other people work. Keep it up.
Thanks for the kind words and critques everyone. Both are very much appreciated. I think I’m putting this work to rest for now. I could keep working it to death… in fact- I think I kind of have a little . At this point, I’m happy with the result, but I can see where changes could be made.
Thank you
Craig
great model, the pose and the gesture are excellent
I’m going to re-open a can of worms. Recently I’ve been advised else where that this work is so dark you can’t really see it. Due to a lack of reliable monitor calibration- I can never be entirely sure what other people see when they look at my work. So… I think the best I can do is work by consensus. If it looks too dark to you- or too light… or just right, please let me know. To help judge the lightness quality, you should be able to see the detail of the hair (it shouldn’t be just a black blob). Thank you in advance for your help.
Craig
50% of the hair on the right side of the image is detailed, the rest of the hair recedes into darkness. There is only the slightest highlight detail in the framing architectural border.
On my macintosh apple monitor I can definitely see some more detail.
If you can raise the lower black end by a 10-20 RGB points of value you’ll probably solve it for most anyone who is running on a shallower gamma range.
Thanks Furball. I’m seeing the same thing- I’ll create a post adjustment and we can see if it works.
Thanks, Craig
I love your work, is amazing, really awesome.
I wonder if you might age it thirty years as a preview of Episode 7.
Loved those movies and love your work!
well you could use her in a animated movie of the same theme. well done. where you do the render? LW. MAYA. MAX? Using lightwave and SAs AND FIBERFx are killing me haha.
Trancegenix
I created the model in Zbrush/Maya
Textures were created using Zbrush/Photoshop
Rendering was done in Maya
Final Composite was put together in After Effects
Thanks for the comments
Craig