Hi, very recently I got the Auto Eye Addon, and share with you my experience with this addon. The first thing you will see, that it is an addon. But it’s not the addon that makes it all interesting but things like the shaders, shapekeys, etc. While the addon is actually the simplest addon you can imagine, it is very useful and I love it. It’s just that you can add an eye into the scene and that’s the addon part. The thing is, it doesn’t take any place in the N- or T-panel. The really interesting stuff is in the shaders, mesh and it’s keyshapes. The shaders are AAAWEESOME! I got another eye-pack, a paid one, but I think this is the best eye you can get. Here, let me show the shaders:
Wooow, and that is the shader only for the Iris. So big that I cannot make a screenshot of it. As you see, the shader for the iris is highly adjustable. I didn’t analyse all the small details, but it feels like the iris itself has several layers you can adjust. But there is way more, like settings for the outer edge of the iris, the inner edge, the pupil, and you see how many color you can define. Then, there is also a shader for the rest of the eyeball that has a similar size. Also a shader for the pupil itself, but that is just a color you can adjust.
The first thing you do is playing around with the eye, sliding every slide and trying all the shapekeys. And that is fun, I can tell you. But after the playing you will want to use it in a character. And here I couldn’t figure something out and asked for support. If you make the same mistake as me, you will see that when you copy the eye (you need a left and right eye) the copy is “loosing the texture for the iris”. Actually it’s funny: I checked everything and I couldn’t figure it out why that happend. Long story short: I asked for support and got reply within a few minutes. Lol, the problem was: I copied the eyeball only but there are two meshes, the eyeball and the iris. Duh, why I didn’t realize that. Obviously, yes.
Ok, so you can also join the two meshes. Which might be easier in case you work with Auto Rig Pro. I did that, and it just works fine: still you can adjust all shaders and shapekeys. No issues at all. Then I applied a mirror modifier, got a character (Joy from BGshop) and all works smoothly. Here you see a tweet with a short animation:
You can get the Auto Eye Addon on Blender Market.
Btw, I rendered this scene ofcourse with EV Express.