EYE CREATION IN MAYA TUTORIAL

Contents
Modeling
UVs
Texturing and Map Creation
Lighting
Shading and Materials
Rendering
Created by

MODELING

In order to create a more realistic eye, Create 4 Major Pieces

1. Lens/ Cornea
2. Sclera
3. Iris
4. Pupil

The Cornea refracts the Iris and creates distortion; it is also used as a wet layer for the sclera.
In some cases, the Iris and Sclera Geo can be connected for the purpose of using it in Zbrush. This
is usually how its done; I did it differently though. First, I create them together and then separate
the Iris. The reason for separating these pieces is because the sclera will create more shadow on the
iris and will give it a much more realistic look. We will add a bit of transparency around the edge of
the detachment in order to make the transition clean. There is a blurred effect as the Cornea merges
into the Iris. The Pupil will just be there so that no light can get pass the hole of the iris. It will be
assigned a black surface shader.

Creation Process
1. In Maya, Create a sphere and rotate it 90
degrees in X, and change the amount of
segments in the channel box to around
16.
2. CREATE 2 DUPLICATES; Rename.
3. Now begin to create the iris by selecting
the front vertex of the sphere, turning on
soft selection (B), and bring it back in Z.
Artistically try to create an iris in Maya.
Think about the proportions of the iris to
the entire eyeball. Add edge loops where
needed. Make sure that the iris creates a
nice transition inward.
4. Try to place an edge where you want to
create the hole for the pupil and then
delete the faces to create a hole.

Now the sclera/Iris geo (two in one) is complete.

5. Now go back to the duplicated version, and scale it up
just a little bit. Do this from the side view in
wireframe, and like last time, select the front vertex
but now go in + Z. We want to create a nice bulge;
clean up the edges. Bring the bulge near the edge of
the sclera or else there will be a sharp shadow.
Make sure you check what your model looks like in
subdivision mode. (3)
6. Take the last duplicated sphere, delete half of the faces
from the front, and then reverse normal to create a
half inner sphere. This will be our pupil; place behind
the iris in side view.

Now you should have your basic eye with 3 pieces, you can separate the iris and have 4 pieces in
order to get more shadows, or you can just keep it simple with these 3 pieces.
I am going to separate the sclera/iris piece so that I can get more shadows from the cornea and a
slight blur effect around the edge.

No Lighting, Blur of the Sclera

The creation Process is more for beginners.
Delete history and Freeze Transforms.

UV MAPPING
There are many different ways to UV, and
if you are completely new to this subject I
would go look up a basic tutorial before
continuing. I am going to show you my
method which works with Maya 2015,
using the Unfold 3d plugin. Just keep in
mind that there are many ways to do this
part. The goal is to get UVs on the Sclera
and Iris.
First, Go to Window
Settings/Preferences Plug-in Manager
and make sure Unfold 3D is checked and
loaded.
Now select your Sclera and do a Front
Projection in Z.
Now do the same for the Iris.
For the Sclera, if you cut a seam right in the
middle, then you can scale up the front island in
order to get more resolution; No one is going
to see the back
Select the edges where you want to cut a seam,
and then in the UV editor, select the orange
scissors. If you select on UV and hold Ctrl +
Shift (Win) Cmd + Shift (Mac) it should say Go
to UV Shell

Unfold Settings

UV Map for the Sclera

Now select all the UVs for the Sclera and click on Unfold. Grab the Front Island Using Layout
UVs select Per Object and it will scale this up perfectly. Make the other island (back side of the
Sclera) much smaller and put it in the corner. Use up as much space as you can.

For the lens, all you need to do is a FRONT PROJECTION IN Z;

I will explain later why we dont need to create a seam.
The Iris doesnt need any seams. Just select all the UVs and click unfold again.
Export the UV Snapshots at 4096

Sclera UV Snapshot

Iris UV Snapshot

TEXTURING AND MAP CREATION

Export your Sclera and Iris as .obj, save the scene and
dont forget about the Lens! We dont need the
Lens/Cornea in Zbrush, but we will need it later. My
method is to create a basic texture in Zbrush, then add
high resolution from reference in Photoshop. If you
prefer you can just project it in Zbrush, However I think
using Photoshop is a little bit more resourceful.
Start a new project and import the Sclera and
Iris.
Im going to import some reference into Zbrush
to do a quick projection, and then I will sample
the color (C) and quickly paint in the rest.
Do the same for the Iris. Iris is usually pretty
easy to project
Now to export the texture, we need to convert the
polypaint to texture. In the Texture Map pallet select
create from polypaint. Do the same for the Iris. We
should have both of the textures in the texture map pallet
preview. Now to export; press clone, and then click on
the texture palette window. Make sure to Flip in V before
Exporting! If you use Zbrush you should already know
this, but for beginners; Always flip your textures before
exporting them from Zbrush! Zbrush and Mayas UV
Space differently, so just keep that in mind.
The reason we brought it into Zbrush first was just to
create a basic texture to cover up seams. If I began in
Photoshop first, then it would be more difficult to paint
over seams; Zbrush takes care of that problem.

Now you can do one of two things.

Project High resolution photos in 3D space using Zbrush Poly paint.
Or
Use Photoshop and UV Snapshot in order to manipulate multiple High Resolution Photos
into a texture.
I do a little of both so its up to you and what you prefer.
Using reference with an eye looking Up, Down, Left, and Right; I copy and paste certain sections of
the eye onto the basic texture that we exported from Zbrush. Using mask in PS, I take away the hard
edges. I clone a little bit, but it is much better to duplicate or paste in a different section from the
reference. I try to get some veins in there cleanly, go back using eyedropper (Alt), and paint in areas
that need to be cleaned up. I have some skin and pore brushes that I use in Photoshop and Zbrush.
I like getting some color variation using these brushes. Once finished, Export this map as a .tif
The Exact same process applies to the iris. Make sure to clean up the highlights! You can change the
color with a Hue and Saturation layer.
The Lens does not need a color map.
Finalizing the texture
Now go into Zbrush and do the finishing touches. Starting with the Sclera, import your texture into
Zbrush through the texture Pallet Window. MAKE SURE TO FLIP IN V. The cool thing is, we
can just convert this to polypaint and do some final touches. Sometimes through the conversion
there might be some pixilation around the seam, but just clean it up real quick. Find some vein
alphas, and then just drag some red and green veins in some variety; dont overdo it if
you are happy with the way it looks. Now, add some bump to the eye. Grab the
standard, and just pick a speckled alpha, Spray stroke, at a lower opacity. This bump will
be used for the lens and the cornea if you like. This step is more for the lens! The lens is
going to have a highly reflective material and if we create a normal map for the reflective
material, it will give a speckled/bumpy reflection, which is pretty accurate for a realistic
eye. The reflection is perfectly clean and metallic.
For the Iris there is a pretty cool trick. In Photoshop,
desaturate the color map you made for the Iris, Play with the
levels, and now you have a bump map; or if you are aware on
how to set up displacement, you have a displacement map! You
shouldnt really need to do any finalizing for the iris, but you
can repeat the last step of finalizing in Zbrush if youd like.

Now convert the polypaint for the Sclera into a texture. To export the details you made with the
speckled bump, create a normal map by going to the normal map palette and then Export map.
Treat this just like a texture when you export it. (Clone, Flip V, Export .tif)
The following Textures should be completed.
(Created from the sclera!)

Sclera_Diffuse

Lens_Normal

Iris _ Diffuse

Iris _ Disp

Now from these maps we will create further maps using Photoshop.
Some of these are really necessary, but the more control the better.
Take Sclera_Diffuse, Desaturate it, and play with the levels and clean up
the veins so that they are white! This will be called Sclera_Bump. This will
be great for giving some details in the veins.
Now Reopen Sclera_Diffuse, Duplicate it, and add a Hue and Saturation
Adjustment Layer in order to make a Subdermal map for the eye. This is
for creating skin. In V-ray I rarely use this; however it might be needed in
mental ray.
Make this map more saturated and stronger in Red Hue.
This is called Sclera_Subdermal
Now we need to create one more map; this will be Sclera_Refraction. This
is a strange blur that happens as the Sclera merges with the Iris. There are
shadows, but there is no visible line where the sclera ends. I like to get this
effect with a transparency/refraction map for the sclera.
Go back in Maya and find out where the edge of the hole is. Just select the
edges with the UV Texture editor window open. Now, in Photoshop,
Open the UV Snapshot, Unlock the BG, and Create a layer under it. Select
the top layer (UV Snapshot) and set it to Screen. Select the layer below, fill
with Black, and create a new layer. Now the UV Snapshot will be visible as
you paint under it.
Paint White around the edge and you can even Gaussian Blur it afterwards to clean it up. Dont
make the edge of white too harsh. You can also create a circle shape, and stroke path with brush;
that is how I get a perfect circle.
All the Maps are finished!! Yes! This should be good enough!

Project Setup, Scale, Linear Workflow

Before we begin to setup our scene, set up a project. If you are a beginner, it is so important to set
up your project before going further. Sure, you could make it work without doing so, but it will
cause problems later. IT ALWAYS DOES. Just saying. Just use the File Project window and create
a folder. Move all your textures into the source images folder afterwards. This will save you so many
Headaches!!

Now Scale I suggest scaling the eye to real world scale.

This is the basis for all the lighting and shaders in Maya. If
your eye isnt looking correct, it might be because we arent
at the same size. Lets make sure everybody is at the exact
same correct world scale. Go to WindowSettings/Preferences Preferences Settings and make
sure the Unit of Measurement is for cm!!
Now go to Display Grid, the grid is our ruler... Each
square is one unit, which we set a Unit to equal a cm. Make
the whole grid size 50 cm vertically and horizontally, by
entering 25 into the Grid Size. This will make the grid 50
cm in + X and 50 cm in X, Resulting with the grid being
in entirety 100cm. Now turn everything else to 1, the
subdivision will just cause confusion.

This tutorial is not going to go in depth on Linear Workflow. This is a confusing topic in itself, but I
want to make it clear that it is very important and that I will be using this workflow for my rendering
process. You dont HAVE to do it (You should) but you arent getting accurate lighting otherwise.
V-ray does it automatically for you now, but for mental Ray, I do specific things in order to get
realistic lighting and the correct gamma. I highly suggest typing Linear Work Flow Maya in
YouTube.

LIGHTING
I want to stress that lighting is maybe the most important thing. Why? All the shaders work based
off this lighting. We as artist need to appreciate this stage in order to get a realistic model. For this
tutorial, In order to get more realistic reflections and lighting, I recommend using an HDRI!!! You
can download free ones at http://www.hdrlabs.com/

We want to use an IBL Mental Ray, Or a Dome Light V-ray, in either case; we need an
environment to reflect, not just an infinite black space with a couple of lights!
Lighting will be different for different render engines.
I always pretty much use a three point lighting system when it is
just one object. Learn more about it by searching Three Point
Lighting.
However, here is the basic idea.
V-ray Create a Dome Light, in Texture map; import your HDRI
from your source images.
Create a Key Rectangle light This will be for shadows and for reflection in the cornea
Create a Rim Rectangle Light This will give a nice outer Highlight to the eye.
Bring the Dome light to around .6 in intensity. Think of this as a
fill light and for reflection. Select Spherical.
Make the key light a cool temperature and slightly less intense
than the default value.
Make the Rim light a warmer temperature. Make the intensity
higher than the default value.
Play with these values. They can be interchanged and adjusted accordingly.
The temperatures can be reversed if you like (Key- Warm, Rim- Cool)
The lighting isnt Finished* per say, but it is setup! Save this scene as 01_Eye_Setup

Mental Ray - Set up linear workflow by selecting the check

box in the common Render Settings. Now Open up the
render view, select display, Color Management, and in the
attribute editor, I change the Image Color Profile to
Linear.
Now we are set to go,
FYI: All color swatches in Maya are SRGB, so if you create a material and you are using the colors
of the shaders, youll need to create a gamma node. Like I said, go
look it up!!!
Create an IBL in the render Settings, and import your HDR.
Create a Key Area Light, and a Rim Area Light.
This isnt V-Ray sadly and we have to set these lights up
to be realistic. In the Attribute editor, change the decay
rate to Quadratic. You will have to adjust your intensity
to be much stronger*
Go to mental ray section, Select Use Light Shape.
The High samples are what you will clean up the
shadows with,
Select Visible.
Now you need to gamma correct the color for the light. Select the
checkerboard - go to utilities Gamma correct Node.
For the Gamma, Input .454 into all 3 boxes.
The value is where you will select your color! Select a coolish white.
Do the EXACT same Process for the Rim Light; Select a warmish
white!
Remember! Rim has a little bit more of intensity (1.3?) and Key has a slightly lower intensity (.9).
This can be changed!!
Now In V-ray I dont always use GI, because most of the time it isnt necessary with a dome light.
You can experiment with it, but in Mental Ray, you really need it to get things to look good. I will go
over Final Gather in the Rendering Section.
Woohoo! All the scenes are ready and we can now import the models and create shaders!

SHADING AND MATERIALS

So now it is time to import the model and scale it to real world scale. Remember each square is 1
cm! The size of a Human eye is 2.4 cm. Group all the Geo, Scale the eyeball to be about two
squares in length. Make sure you have all the pieces! Sclera, Iris, Lens/Cornea, Pupil, 4 in total.
Check your lighting! Try to get a render with a reflective material, in order to make sure everything is
set up.

Render of Lighting Set up with Reflective VrayMtl

V-Ray method
Sclera VrayFastSSS2
Iris VrayFastSSS2
Lens- VrayMtl
Pupil Surface Shader
The Sclera only needs SSS. Turn spec to zero. You can play with this, but we will get the spec from
the lens; the lens also serves as a wet layer.
Create a VrayFastSSS2 and assign it to the Sclera.
This shader is really great because you only really need one color map most of the time.
Click a preset, Skin (Pink), to start from.

Assign your texture Sclera_Diffuse to the Overall - Diffuse and Subsurface color slots. You can try
adding Sclera_Subdermal to the Sub-surface color; however I usually prefer putting the diffuse in all
3.
Leave the scatter color Red/Orange,
Take a Render and decide what needs to be done to the scatter.
Are there harsh shadows? Is it blown out?
We can control the amount of scatter with the scale, and get a different Scatter effect. Usually going
lower in scale increases the SSS, and going up will decrease the SSS, causing more shadows. I have
seen this flip though. Just know that the scale controls the amount of SSS. We can also control how
much it bleeds or scatters with the Scatter Radius attribute. So I usually play with those two values
in order to get the scatter effect that I like. Make sure that specular amount is at 0!
Add the Sclera_Bump to the bump map, and play with the multiplier. Usually I leave the Map type
at Bump Map, but you can try Normal map if you would like. Bump value to start from .1
If you want to create the transparency for the edge of the sclera,
Create a VrayBlendMtl, put the SSS in the Base material, and for
the Coat Material 0, insert a 70% Transparent VrayMtl. Then you
can insert the Sclera_Refraction map into the Blend Amount. This
will tell V-ray that where it is white, is where we want the Coat
Material. (The transparency)
For the iris, do the exact same process. Use a different scatter color
this time, maybe blue?
Now for the pupil, add just a black surface shader, pretty basic.
The Lens needs to be a clear, Refractive, and
Reflective material.
Assign VrayMtl, Make the diffuse black, Amount
=0
Make the reflection color white
Unlock Fresnel IOR to Refraction IOR.
Go up Fresnel IOR in order to add more
reflections in the 0 degree angle. Dont go too
high,
but this will help get the right
reflection, mixed between a glazing angle and a
front angle view reflection.
Lower the Reflection Glossiness to .97 - .98, play
with it.
Turn Refraction Color to white,
Check Affect Shadows,
In Affect Channels, select All Channels
The Cornea of the eye has an I.O.R of 1.38
Change Refraction IOR to 1.38 - This will give the realistic bending of the Iris, especially from side
views.
Now add Lens_Normal to Bump Map (Same thing as the Sclera)

Mental Ray Sclera Mila-Shader

Iris Mila-Shader
Lens- Mia_Material_X
Pupil Surface Shader
Watch a quick tutorial on Mila before going further! It will help if you have never used it before; this
is just for Mental Ray! If you cant figure out how to get a good scatter, use a lambert. It isnt going
to be realistic, but it is an easier method.
Assign Mila to Sclera,
Create a New Layer, Weighted, and select a Subsurface
Scatter Elemental Component.
Front Tint assign Sclera_Diffuse
Back Tint assign Sclera_Subdermal
Now Scale conversion is the same thing as in the
VrayFastSSS shader. It changes the amount of
scattering that is produced by the shader. Find
something that works for your scene.
In order to adjust how much it scatters, or how much
of that bleed effect we get, play with the back weight
and front weight.
Make sure you have the Mila Material selected with all
the layers, make a new weighted Diffuse Reflection
layer. Add Sclera_Bump to the bump box; Make sure to
change the weight value to around .1.
The Exact same process applies to the iris.
Assign Mia_Material_X to the Lens.
Turn Diffuse Color to black, weight 0
In Reflection Tab,
Reflection to .78
Turn Glossiness to .96
In Refraction Tab,
Turn Transparency to 1
Index of Refraction 1.38
In BRDF Tab,
This is the same theory; we want more reflection
in the 90 degree angle than in the 0 degree. You
can select Fresnel Reflections, but I usually have
to play with the degree reflection in order to get
something I like.
In Bump Tab,
Add Lens_Normal to the Overall Bump

All the shaders are setup! Not done though! I never get everything right from setting everything up
in a linear step by step fashion! Maybe sometimes I get lucky, But MOST of the time, it is trial and
error setting up textures and shaders. I go back in forth between Rendering, Texturing and adjusting
settings, I told you the settings I play with, it is the goal to match your reference and make
adjustments accordingly.

RENDERING
Here are some of the settings I mess around with in the render settings.
V-ray In the V-ray tab, up the Max subdivs to around 20,
and change the threshold to .03 that is for testing
Make sure that you clean up the noise in the shadows, SSS,
and reflection, by upping the subdivisions locally on the
material itself.
For final Render, I set max subdivs to 16- 18, and the
threshold back to .01 or .02
AA Filter type Gaussian
Add Render Elements if you would like to see the layers individually. Change image type to .EXR
(multichannel)
Mental RayIn the indirect lighting tab of the render settings, check Final
Gathering.
Up the accuracy to 250
Point Density .1
Point Interpolation 18
Thats a starting point, for more research Final Gather.

CONCLUSION
The creation of a realistic eye can be achieved through 4 pieces of geometry called Sclera, Iris,
Cornea, and Pupil. Through Texturing, Lighting and Shading, The end result is a render of a realistic
interpretation of the eye. This tutorial is not THE way, but ONE way out of a million. If you have
any suggestions or thoughts, feel free to email me at malikeena@gmail.com
More tutorials soon. Please visit www.malikeena.com for more information

Photo Reference is from 3DSK!

References
http://www.3d.sk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-point_lighting
http://www.hdrlabs.com/news/index.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Human_eye
http://www.pixelandpoly.com/ior.html
http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2015/ENU/
http://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/VRAY3MAYA/VRayFastSSS2#