The Eyes

Making the eyes is quite a simple and straightforward task and can add a lot of depth and personality to the character.

I start off by creating a sphere, naming it ‘Iris’ and changing the colour to white. By cloning this sphere and decreasing the Hemisphere we can create a lens shaped object. I changed the colour to black and named it ‘Pupil’. I then reduced the radius to form a good sized pupil.

The next step is to create the skin which will form the eyelids. Again we start by cloning the first sphere and reducing the hemisphere to create a sphere cut in half. I increased the radius slightly and rotated it into place to form an eyelid. Also I changed the objects colour to skin coloured. I then cloned the first eyelid and placed it on the opposite side under the eye.

The model of the eye is now finished but the next step will allow us to manipulate the vertices of the eye to form expressions. Under the ‘Space Warps’ panel I selected ‘Geometric/Deformable’ objects from the drop down menu. Within this menu I can select ‘FFD(Box)’. I dragged this box out to cover the eye with the number of points set to 2x2x2.

With all the eye objects selected I use the bind to space warp selection to connect the eye to the FFD(Box).

Now under the FFD(Box) modifier list I can select ‘Control Points’ to pick points of the box to move which will move the vertices of the eye object.

Below is a short video example of the FFD(Box) controlling a pair of eyes.

Another important way to control the eyes is to use helper points. Using helper points we can set up the pupils to follow the points which can be useful when you’d like your characters eyes to follow something.

Under the Create panel I selected the helper objects and chose Point. I placed the point helper on the stage in front of the eye, this will be the object that the pupil will follow.

With a pupil selected I went to the motion control and within the assign controller parameter I clicked the Rotation: Euler and then clicked the small ‘?’ box to bring up a list of controllers. I picked the ‘LookAt Constraint’.

Further down the assign controller parameters the ‘LookAt Constraint’ becomes available and will now allow us to select LookAt Target to pick the helper object. The pupil will now follow the helper object when it moves. However be sure that the Select LookAt Axis is set to the right axis, in this case it’s the Z axis.

Below is a short video of a pair of eyes moving with the help of two separate helper objects.