Creative Mac: Tutorial: The Eyes Have It

TUTORIAL • JUNE 5, 2001

The Eyes Have It
[Page 4 of 7]

The 'Inner' object
The "Inner" object is the white of your eye and the one to which we will be applying the veins texture map.

1 . As with the "Innerinner" object, we're first going to do a little shape changing. So switch over to FX mode, select the Flatten effect and create a depression whose diameter is about 1/3 the total diameter of the visible area of the "Inner" object, just as you did with the "Innerinner" object..

2. Switch to the Material mode.

2a. For Diffuse color and Specular Color, choose White, and leave the setting at 100 percent. (If you'd like to add veins to your eyeball, this would be the place to do it, choosing a veins texture map for the Diffuse Color, and a veins bump map for Specular and Bump.)

2b. Set your Specular Roughness to something like 10.

2c. Set your Transparency to 10 percent. A higher number creates more transparency; a lower number will make the object more opaque. This setting will determine how much of the blue "Innerinner" object you'll be able to see in the final render.

2d. Keep your refraction low, not exceeding 1.090. I have mine set at 1.090, which might even be a bit too high, since the actual white of the eye doesn't do much refracting.

2e. Set your Reflectivity below 30. (I have mine at 10.)

All done with the "Inner" object. Time to move on to the "Outer."

The 'Outer' object
The "Outer" object is the clear goo on the outside of your eye, including the lens of the eye. Unlike the previous two objects, this one will not be tweaked in the FX workspace. Rather, we're going to use our Tools mode to pull out a rounded bulge on the front of our eye to represent the lens.

1. Go into Tool mode and choose "Outer" from the Choose menu at the bottom of your screen. You're going to use the Brush tool, but we're going to have to set both the radius and the direction of the brush. In the Brush palette, make sure the direction arrow is pointing left. Set the Radius to something like a third the diameter of the object.

With the Direction arrow pointing
left, the Brush tool pulls out
on your geometry rather
than pushing in.

2. Slowly apply the tool until you have a small protrusion. It would be best to use a pressure tablet, but you can also just turn down the default pressure in the Brush palette.

3. Change your direction arrow back to right-facing and use the Smooth tool (the one that looks like a sponge) to get rid of any rough edges.

Click Image To Watch!

Using the brush and smooth tools to shape the lens of the eye.
Click image to watch (596 KB QuickTime).

3. Now we'll go into Material mode.

3a. Set the Diffuse and Specular colors to White (100 percent).