Here are some things that seem to pop up quite often:
Being "anatomically correct" on "low poly" eyeballs by indenting the iris can actually do more harm than good:
This indent throws off the specular highlight so often people try to fake a cornea by throwing another transparent sphere over the top of everything. This creates another problem especially if the cornea has an "anatomically correct" bump modeled into it, that will no doubt clip through the eyelids at some point. Not to mention throw off the center of the eyeball making it harder to rotate properly. /slow clap
OOOO so realistic, such a good use of polygons... I love how it accurately captures the indented iris and the semi-transparent watery cornea and how it accurately warps the light! So real it hurts! /end sarcasm
Leave it convex unless you have a parallax shader or maybe a normal map for the indented iris and bumpy cornea.
At 3ft away no one is going to be critiquing your non-concave iris but they will notice the eye bag clipping and the anatomically correct cornea clipping through the eyelids.
Also don't do egg shaped eyeballs, they are very difficult to rotate properly.
As an animator I do like having control over the iris, so it can be worth it to have a few supporting loops in there for deformation, but that really depends on the engine and if the animation will even call for it.
Bottomline: It really depends on how important eyes are to your game, how close you'll get and what kind of tech budget your studio wants to throw into creating eyeballs, there are a lot of different ways to do eyes and it really depends on a lot of factors.
eyes are not straight forward looking, so if you ever struggle with cross eyed characters, double check that - also the usualy diameter of an eye is 24-26mm
double check your data, otherwise tiny cross eyed Arcturus Mengsk will come to get you!
on another thought by mark, "anatomical correct" is more like cg fake nice looking iris
most modern games i worked with used parallax shader maging and actually bulging out geometry to resemble the cornea shape more and let shader magic do the rest, also stuff like reaction on light Mark showed was done in shader often.
Replies
Sculpting human eyes in Zbrush
Creating realistic human eyes in photoshop and 3DS Max
Texturing animal eyes in Maya
I'm sorry I can't be of more help, I haven't done much with eyes personally but I thought I'd let you know about these at least.
Being "anatomically correct" on "low poly" eyeballs by indenting the iris can actually do more harm than good:
This indent throws off the specular highlight so often people try to fake a cornea by throwing another transparent sphere over the top of everything. This creates another problem especially if the cornea has an "anatomically correct" bump modeled into it, that will no doubt clip through the eyelids at some point. Not to mention throw off the center of the eyeball making it harder to rotate properly. /slow clap
OOOO so realistic, such a good use of polygons... I love how it accurately captures the indented iris and the semi-transparent watery cornea and how it accurately warps the light! So real it hurts! /end sarcasm
Leave it convex unless you have a parallax shader or maybe a normal map for the indented iris and bumpy cornea.
At 3ft away no one is going to be critiquing your non-concave iris but they will notice the eye bag clipping and the anatomically correct cornea clipping through the eyelids.
Also don't do egg shaped eyeballs, they are very difficult to rotate properly.
As an animator I do like having control over the iris, so it can be worth it to have a few supporting loops in there for deformation, but that really depends on the engine and if the animation will even call for it.
Bottomline: It really depends on how important eyes are to your game, how close you'll get and what kind of tech budget your studio wants to throw into creating eyeballs, there are a lot of different ways to do eyes and it really depends on a lot of factors.
eyes are not straight forward looking, so if you ever struggle with cross eyed characters, double check that - also the usualy diameter of an eye is 24-26mm
double check your data, otherwise tiny cross eyed Arcturus Mengsk will come to get you!
on another thought by mark, "anatomical correct" is more like cg fake nice looking iris
the iris is flat or bulging out slightly but doesn't bulg in ever, but the way it scatters light makes it look like bulging in
THIS IS NOT FOR PEOPLE WITH A WEAK STOMACH! http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Labs/Anatomy_&_Physiology/A&P202/Special_Senses/Eye/CAT_EYE.htm
most modern games i worked with used parallax shader maging and actually bulging out geometry to resemble the cornea shape more and let shader magic do the rest, also stuff like reaction on light Mark showed was done in shader often.
http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-accurate-scan-girls-head-model/599584
and auto retopo...
on a serious note, this might be of help:
http://www.anatomyforsculptors.com/?menu=9&sub=27#body
go to the head section, and check the secrets tab.
also this book is pretty good:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Artists-Complete-Guide-Drawing-Head/dp/0823003590/ref=pd_sim_b_10"]The Artist's Complete Guide to Drawing the Head: William Maughan: 9780823003594: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]
http://wiki.polycount.net/FaceTopology
http://wiki.polycount.net/SphereTopology