There's one
final step before we move on. We're going to attach (parent) the
"Inner" and "Innerinner" objects to the "Outer"
object in a hierarchy. This will help us to keep them together
when we want to rotate, move or scale the eye. To do this, go
to your Composer mode and select "Innerinner" in the
timeline. Click on the little Link to Parent button, and then
click on the "Outer" object. Now do the same with the
"Inner" object, making sure you attach it to the "Outer"
object and not the other way around. The reason for this is that
in the Composer window, the only visible object will be "Outer."
So it will just be easier to use that as the parent than anything
else.
Click
Image To Watch!
The hierarchy of your objects is shown in the timeline
window. Here, "Outer" is the parent of "Inner"
and
"Innerinner," as indicated by the triangular icon.
Click image to watch (144 KB QuickTime).
Iris
and pupil
We're doing the iris and pupil as separate objects. Actually,
we'll have a hole in the iris that will be the actual pupil. The
object that we'll be referring to as a pupil will actually just
be a black disk to cover up the whiteness of the eye underneath.
The object that we'll be calling "Pupil" is incredibly
simple to create. But we'll do the iris first.
The iris
To create the iris, we're going to use a mesh torus (the donut
shape). Just make it any size you want. We can scale it later.
In the timeline, name it "Iris," then follow these steps.
1. First we're
going to increase the resolution of our mesh torus. If you don't
do this, you're going to have some flat edges that will show up
in your final render. So just click on the tool that's called
MeshMan Quad. Then click on your mesh torus. This will double
your polygon count for that object only. (Incidentally, you can
also do this to portions of an object by using the mask tool,
as discussed in a previous
tutorial.) Important: After you've used this tool,
select another tool so that you don't accidentally use it again.
Increasing polygons can cause a significant slowdown in performance.
2. Go into
the FX mode by selecting FX from your menu bar. Select the effect
called Normal Displace. Apply it to your "Iris" until
it's big and fat, and there's just a little hole in the middle.
Click
Image To Watch!
Our mesh torus with normals displaced.
Click image to watch (244 KB QuickTime).
3. Now, if
your Top view shows a circle, then apply the next step to the
Top view window. Otherwise, just apply it to whichever view shows
the circle.
Click
Image To Watch!
Our
mesh torus flattened. Click image to watch (280 KB QuickTime).
4. Now head
over into the Material mode. For Diffuse Color use the texture
you created in Photoshop (the one we called "iris1.tif").
Leave it at 100 percent.
5. For Specular
Color, Specular Roughness and Bump, select the desaturated texture
you created called "irisbump1.tif. Leave all of these at
100 percent as well. Leave everything else at default values.
6. Now, you
might have noticed that the texture doesn't look exactly right.
So go into the mode called Mapper by clicking the Mapper button
in the top menu bar. Then select the tool called "Apply Planar,"
and click on your object. You might also need to use the Scale
and Drag tools to fit it just right.
