Big Eyes - Big Iris | Problem

Kobar

Hello,

I am working on a cartoony movie and I have to model a bunch of characters. We haven't set a style for the eyes yet so I created different shape keys to make an unique eye for each character easier for me.
I am used to model the iris going flat or inwards a tiny bit and add a sclera as extra model for realistic models.

Now I encountered a problem when I want to have a big iris. If I want it to be flat then I cut more away from the round shape and I get problems to see the inner part of the lids.

I know that the easiest solution would be to make everything round but will it look good in todays standard? How do big companies solve this?

(Also: Is it common to model ellipse shaped eyes? To use a lattice on top of the rig?)

Of course there are many ways and that everything is based on our creativity and perception of aesthetics. Sadly we don't have much time to explore "our" way and set a Look Development.

So here I am asking for the most common ways from studios with greater experience.

My standard eye with a sclera on the right.

Different shape keys for different characters

I cut away the sphere the bigger I make the iris.

Which leads to this result when the eye is in the corner. I will have a sclera which might reflect and refract the area and block the sight but maybe this won't help all the time.

If you say to me that simple spheres as eyes would be the best method then

A: would you still add a sclera with a small bump on the front or

B: would you make it also a sphere or

C: would you remove it completely.

Best wishes

RN

@Kobar you don't need to clip the eye sphere like that in order to have a bump in the iris, or you'll run into that problem of course.
You can get away with giving the illusion that there is an iris bump. You can use a baked normal map for example, something like this:

I'm saying this because there's a "baby Dory" character in the Finding Dory film, and she has huge eyes with irises that react to lighting:

Taken from this clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3kIpCzLzEo

Neox

the usual solution i know would be using a parallax shader to fake the depth of the diffuse shading , while keeping the normal smoothed or bumped outwards so the highlight doesn't break on the edge of iris and the rest of the eyeball.
a second normalmap to drive the diffuse shading would also be possible