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Eye Highlights -Always 'on'


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Recently, I was befuddled trying to get eye-highlights to show up consistently. Naturally, I played with my eye geometry's specular settings... adjusted lights etc but I was never really happy with getting a consistent highlite in the eye... essential to giving the 'spark' that helps make the eye look glossy, alive, vital, sharp... etcetera. Since my initial effort was to make an illustration, I automatically thought- 'oh, just add it later in Photoshop.' But when I considered animating the scene I decided I needed an 'always on' solution, so I modeled it as a simple lathed circle with 100% ambiance.

 

SO- I simply made geometry that would guarantee the highlites 'ever-presence' and weighted it to the eye's bone with a mix to the head bone so that it would not fully track with the eye. This is a cartoony 'cheat' or 'trick' that I would recommend in a lot of scenarios- but not all. Additionally, I could add poses that would make this circular hilite bigger/smaller or more transparent...

 

Here are links to see this trick in action on my Trinquette pinup challenge entry:

 

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=360...e=1&theater

And links to the 2 animations:

tempry.jpg

Trinkette_003.png

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Here's a neat piece that explains why that eye highlight appears in the first place. It's because there's a bump over the cornea. If you model that, it's likely you can get the highlight you want.

 

To get around the ugly bump visible on large eyes, they suggest using a bump map.

 

Article here.

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Just gave it a shot.

 

Made a simple eye with a dome over the cornea. The dome was set to 90% transparency and the specularity was set at size: 20% and intensity: 200%.

 

And it works!

 

Screen_Shot_2013_05_15_at_12.14.36_PM.png

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but doesn't your method need a light on the eyes all the time to create the reflection, Mark? Matt's method will keep that highlight lit regardless. Unless I'm not understanding your setup.

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Another thing to consider when using anything transparent WITH FastAO(cpu gpu) the AO will honor the transparent geometry as non-transparent... so the result would be that you would lose detail and color in the cornea area of the eye. I had a transparent sphere around the eye with full specularity on it... it looked great until I started using Jenpy's FastAO products.

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I wasn't discounting Matt's method, Gerry. Just found it interesting to find the reason why we have that highlight. For The Wannabe Pirates, I just made the highlight part of the eye decal. :-)

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