In this tutorial, I show you how to create a fairly realistic-looking eyeball. The iris is made using a technique (using a circle with fractal subdivisions) I learned from a user named “Handlebar” over on the Blenderartist forums.
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Discussion
106 Responses to “Creating an Eyeball”Leave a Comment
You didn’t upload the video right, or am I the only one with this error? You don’t have permission to embed it in this domain.
…and now the video is fine.
I am able to view the video just fine.
You could also make a specular map to make the veins pop out a little more, that gives a nice highlight.
Nice video, thanks.
that’s a good idea
Having issues with getting off the ‘c’ circle once used, any tips? consider im using a macbook
Ta
You can press ESC to cancel the circle select.
-Jonathan
hello
It’s a good tutorial especialy the iris technique.
But to keep raytracing calculation on your lens switch back on the tracable on it, and switch the “receive transparent” on your eyeBall mesh.
thanks for your tutorial
cool, thanks for the tip
I can’t believe the pace at which you keep publishing those tutorials.
Do you ever sleep?
Thank you so much!
i can sleep when i’m dead
I suggested this tutorial just last week and here it is! wow
Everything is so QUIET! I can’t hear anything in your tutorials.
sounds ok to me, might check your speakers?
So, if I don’t have photoshop, how do I do this glow stuff in GIMP? Great tutorial though.
not sure, i’ve not used gimp :{
I used Paint(dot)net, (not regular paint). I put a large red circle on layer 1, a smaller orange circle on layer 2, and a smaller white circle on layer 3. Then used a blur on layer 2 and 3, that made it blend from red to orange to white. I don’t know if this might work on GIMP, I’ve never used it.
@Will:
Well just use the Gradient tool in radial mode. You can do a gradient from one colour to another or you can fade out (color to transparency).
You can also quickly duplicate the layer which your gradient is on and then experiment with colours/ blending modes to get the desired (or unexpected) results.
Thanks! Good stuff.
Hey, good stuff. You talked about a lot of things I’ve not thought of. Thanks a bunch!
Watch and learn . Thank you Mr. Ward .
Great tutorial! What version of Blender 2.5 is this, Alpha 0 or a newer release?
Apologies, you said in the tutorial that you were using Alpha 0. I need to watch the whole thing before I go ahead and comment.
I love to see you guys using 2.5 it gets me more familiar with the new button locations all the time.
thanks for another informative tutorial!!
So does this lend itself to being animate-able in terms of the pupil dilating?
@ DAVID WARD
Thanks for this great tutorial!
Try to talk a bit less to yourself and more to the virtual audience.
Repeat the keyboard-shortcuts of every step taken even if it’s simple things like “g” for grab or “s” for scale.
Redundancy in tutorials is never a bad thing. And less mumbling please …
Just a well-intentioned advice. Don’t get me wrong, please.
Thank you so much, i couldn’t figure out that scaling thing. This is my first time using blender =)
For the transparent shadow problem:
You can try Shadow->Receive Transparent option turned on on the inner sphere material.
Hi great tutorial and perfect timing for me
. Just a small note, in the space-bar search menu there is a option for exporting UV layout. you can save it in .svg and .eps and Gimp can open them. The only small catch is photo shop won’t, but if you re-save them in gimp as a jpg or png it will.
Very nice tutorial! It was a treat to watch from a technical stand point and *any* tutorial that explores 2.50 gets my attention… Your mistakes, while a bit time consuming, were perhaps just as revealing in regards to the 2.50 ui as what you got right.
Great Tutorial David. I tried it myself with great results!! Thanks!
Wow, that’s one pretty good looking eye you got there David! I feel like the inner circle with the lighter texture should have more regular shape (more circular) but maybe that’s just me and likely easy to fix. Great one, thank you!
Soy un novato en blender y me gusto mucho su tutorial. Lo estoy trabajando en la versiòn 2.49b y quisiera que me ayudara para saber lo siguiente: en el video, a los 9:35 usted selecciona un circulo de vèrtices de una sola vez, y no uno por uno. ¿como hace eso? ya que he buscado en internet y no he encontrado la forma de hacerlo. Le agrdeceria me ayudara
Cordial saludo
Fredy
Me respondo a mi mismo. Era pulsando la tecla alt y seleccionando una arista. Gracias
in 10:34 you add another ring to the sphere. ¿how do you do?
ctrl + r (loopcut)
at 13:57 of the video when i move the big circle those two little circles move with it
make sure you’ve turned off the “proportional edit” by pressing “o”
at 13:57 of the video when i move the big circle those two little circles move with it [2]
Material > option > traceable
what’s the use??
“Traceable” determines whether a material receives ray tracing during render time.
Thanks! Jonathan
Legend of the tools in videos
which photoshop are you using?
i figure it out………….
Photoshop it’s eaaier than i thought
thanks for the tut
great tut by the way but i have one problem: I used 2.49 and my texture doesn’t align right. i tried some things but it won’t work. the texture is the same as yours(other colors for iris),…
so my render shows only a red ring around the eyeball. can you imagine why? let me know if you know a solution. thank you
fr
I had the same problem, but in 2.5.2, so it might not be the same process.
With the eyeball material selected, go into the texture tab and scroll to the mapping area (the same place where you switched the coordinate to UV from Generated). In the offset area try messing around with the xyz coordinates to fix the alignment. I set my x to -0.10, y to -0.10, and z to 0.00. Hope this helps!
Im having some problems………….
i get to the point of the Texturing, i can select both “pieces” but when i go into UV, it only shows one of them, not the part without seams, does this matter at all? or is it a problem? im pretty new to blender and im using v2.50 alpha2 (i have 2.49b but a lot of tutorials dont feature it so it can become difficult)
i dont know what im doing wrong.
Great tut! Thanks a lot. Please make an ear tutorial
there already is one: http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/02/23/modeling-a-human-head-part-5/
Great Tutorial.
Another way to make the colored part of the eye is to make it in Photoshop, you can use a combination of radial blur, stained glass and the kaleidoscope effects with any picture or just a gradient of colors. Then add the pupel and I personally like to add a ring to the outer edge of it with the inner/outer glow effects. Sometimes also I like to import the psd into zbrush and add some color shifts and vary the strength of the colors with the hueshifter and saturation brushes. (I learned this as well from a tutorial, but I don’t remember which one, but you can make some very realistic eyes this way) I cant wait to see some of the eyes i’ve created in 3d! Thanks again
Ié a problem at photoshop, I’m not really into the program and i have no idea how you scaled the layer down inside the image,
at 18:50 + i do not have those 4 points in the courner to drag, and as far as i can trace they just poped up in the video, so are you using a short-cut key or am i doing something wrong ??
thaks allreaddy the tutorial is great … except this part XD
you need to select the layer you want to scale, then goto edit, free transform. i think the shorcut is ctrl t, try windowbutton ctrl t if it dosent work and you are in a linux system
Thanks it works !!
Might consider staying away for 3thd party proprietary software for these tutorials… stay in the Free Software tradition and try using GIMP and Inkscape that is accessible and free to everyone. Another thing would be to write every detail and step out before you go into it so there isn’t back tracking in the middle of it.
not that blender is proprietary… photoshop is the pain
How did you get the second circle select at 14:30 to constrain the scaling? I’m pressing c, selecting smallest ring, then press c again and scale with mouse? please clarify… sorry!
what you will need to do is first hit c for circle select, roll your mouse wheel up/down to change its size, then hit left mouse button (lmb) to select those center vertices, after selected hit right mouse button (rmb) to get rid of circle select. then hit o to turn on proportional editing, what i have to do here is zoom way out and hit s (for scale)-this is when i see the proportional editing’s circle of influence– and roll my mouse wheel up (makes it smaller, down makes it bigger) until i can start seeing the proportional editing circle of influence, once i can see it within the relative area i cancel the scale with rmb zoom back in so i can see what im doing then hit s again and make the alterations. dont forget to hit o after you’re all done to turn proportional back off
In 16:05 what should I press to capture the screen(in windows)?
and thank you for this legendary way of teaching..
what version is he using here..? tnx.. any download link for bit 64 or 32…
He is using either a testing build of Blender 2.5 or Blender 2.5 Alpha 2. You can download the latest testing builds from http://graphicall.org
Tnx… so is it still in alpha stage of testing…? or Alpha is just an name included…?
Have been trying for several days now to get the uv layout right, I am using GIMP and when I thnk I have everyting right and go back to blender and load up the material and texture according to your video, when I render the project I get a plaid mesh type render, any solutions….
Thanks
Anthony Shaffer
Hi Anthony,
It sounds like you need to set your image texture mapping to the UV coordinates of your mesh. Or, if you have already done that then you may not have unwrapped your mesh correctly and Blender it mapping the image to each and every one of the faces.
Jonathan
Thank you. Very useful.
I think you doing too hard work. Take a rest before you lose Traceable switch again
Take care.
When I render my Eye in the end it does not look anything like a eye more like the globe in wireframe with a red color what can be wrong ??
Which version are you using?
hi! i know this tutorial rocks and all that but i have not been able to view it completely.it freezes within a few seconds of play back.and when i try to download it into my hard drive it gets to about 80% and the downlaod fails. i think its got something to do with vimeo. can someone please upload this on you tube or any other video websites? i’ll really appreciate it if u can……….. thank you so much!
Why is my blender different?
This is what I get for not starting by the beginners projects…
You are probably using a different version of 2.5 or else using the old 2.49. You can download the latest 2.53 beta from http://blender.org
-Jonathan
I totally dont understand how you scale down the falloff selection range at 14:20 since you dont explain it.
And I can’t find any info on that with google.
ok so when i do this alpha doesn’t show can you help me plz email me back a response?
When I select stuff using B it only selects the stuff on the side I am looking at while when you select stuff in the tutorial, it select everything. What setting do I need to adjust to make B select everything within the box I draw whether I can see it in that view or not?
Thanks.
There is an option to “Limit selection to visible” while in shaded mode in the viewport header. It is just to the right of the selection modes.
-Jonathan
Thanks, one more little thing
what is the short cut to “snap the cursor to center”? I usually use the space bar to find the command, but it doesn’t show a short cut for that. By the way, Jonathan, I have followed along with some of your tutorials, and enjoy how you are helping me to learn blender 
Thanks again.
Jerry
I’m glad to hear you like my tutorials! The short cut you are looking for is SHIFT + S > Cursor to Selection.
-Jonathan
I really need help
Im just starting out because I heard of blender and this tut wanted me to try it in blender
But I really need help, at 2:36 when you selected it selected everything within the circle but when I select then It selects the first break but wont select the centure. Help PLEEASE!!!
(Email your answer to me because I wont know when you reply! (Newe6000@Yahoo.com.au))
Hi David Ward, thanks for the tutorial.
I have seen a few of your tutorials and I have noticed that when saving files you like to sometimes number them incrementally.
I’m a beginner but I learned this for a very old tutorial I saw. You can use Numpad+ and Numpad- to increment the numbers in the file name.
It automatically recognizes numbering strings in the file name and increments them.
Just wanted to share that.
Thanks again for your efforts.
For some reason when I first downloaded blender 2.55 I can’t click or connect any vertices, in fact I can’t really click on anything like the camera, lighting, and the object ( I can’t pick it up and drag it).
at 2:45-2:56 can you write the steps because you lost me when you made the eye bigger by clicking S-scale
Hey
I have question about the texture..
how can it be that you do not have to assign the texture material (eyeball) when you had to assign the other one (shiny lens)?
At 14:24 when u mouse wheel in on the falloff to scale u dont explain how to do it. Im kind of a newbie and dont know all the keys yet. It would really helpful if it was explained.
at 2:50 you make the part you pulled down wider, but didnt tell what you did to do that.
at 2:38 when i try to select a centre its select almost everything how can i select only a center like you? im using blender 2.56b. plss help!
great tutorial, however i seem to have multiple issues…
1. at ~9:50 while selecting the inner ring to extrude and scale, blender seems to be duplicating the lines and extruding and scaling them, leaving the original lines as they are.
2. when we get to the seams and UV unwrapping, in the UV editor window, my UVs unwrap properly at the seams, however, parts of the UVs seem to overlap. to wit, there are 3 circles (for simplicity) and as i select part of the mesh or a UV, it will highlight in another circle. if i select one of the ends (small circles) part of the highlight will be in the larger and/or other circle.
is this a user error or possible bug? i am using 2.56 latest build on a ubuntu machine.
thanks!
-b
Very cool. Love your tutorials. 28:12 made me laugh out loud >_<
Great Stuff! I love your tutorials, only wish you had time to go back and update the ones done in older versions of Blender to the newest version. You have taught me a lot, keep it up!
thanks:
GREAT!!! tutorial. quick question for you if you didn’t have photoshop, could you use GIMP instead?
Most certainly! If you’re not familiar with GIMP you might check out Tim Von Rueden’s recent tutorial on Concept Cookie for drawing an eye. It is slightly different since it’s not about creating the texture but many of the techniques are similar: http://cgcookie.com/concept/2011/10/07/drawing-an-eye-in-gimp/
-Jonathan
here is mine:
https://skydrive.live.com/#!/?cid=D0B01DF58868413E&id=D0B01DF58868413E%211811&sc=documents!cid=D0B01DF58868413E&id=D0B01DF58868413E%211811&sc=documents
At 7:13 I don’t know what happenned
I guess that you copy the iris to paste it but how ?? And how to do a perfect draw of the iris color with photoshop, or gimp???? Thank for your answer 
The alpha buttion doesnt show up in my blender. Can someone help please.
Great tut, but you get to mumbling in the narration and we cant here what you are saying. Even with the volume turned up.
Loved it, made much fun to watch the tutorial. Also i try to post my rendering…
thx Mr. Ward
Excellent tut!! I learned a lot from this!! Thanks for sharing. Also I had no problems hearing you or had too much trouble following. :]
I have a problem… (5:16) there is no alpha button, how can I fix this?
I love this tutorial, great making realistic. Unfortunatly I think they changed somethin when they went to 2.61, using same settings makes the outter eye all greyed out. Any sugestions how fix it?
Great tutorial, thank you so much!
Sadly I am experiencing some problems: I also use 2.60 and have a problem when switching from Z Transparency to Raytrace. The “shiny lens” is transparent with all the settings from the tutorial, but after rendering there is nothing on the screen but the glossy light spot on the outer sphere.. Any Ideas?
Thank you,
Pavlina
Nevermind.. I figured it out. I deleted the materials and added them again.. and it worked
Fantastic blog wonderful article.Really thanks a ton! Cool.
Hi I am in doubt when you put your dirty Raytrace of error and the render.
http://www.duley.art.br/duvida.jpg
im using blender 2.60 and when i save the uv image to go and edit it in gimp the uv lines dont show and when i take a screen shot of the uv map and am finished editing etc and apply it the iris area is like off target as if the uv mapping was in the wrong area if i could put it that way can anyone help?
Before doing a tutorial learn to speak.
NOW ajhdhfjfkmcncjdkdk WE TAKE fhjdjdjkkkskddhffhjjkekj THIS mtz du du OOKEy
It sounds like this and it’s a waste of time to see a tutorial like that.
http://vimeo.com/2830890
chupa \o/
hi! at 18:46 how you can scale the eye .I try but i cant pleas help me pleeeeeeas
hello i’m just wondering what the URL on vimeo is for this video?