G8 Eyes; How to get rid of White Ring Syndrome

L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

This came up in the Morphs from G3 to G8 thread and rather than hijack that thread, I'm starting a new one. Here are a couple of quotes from @agent unawares. First:

any idea how to get the eyes to look real on gen8, they look unrealistic

Basic quick setup:

Turn Cornea Bulge to 200% and adjust the iris inwards by ~20% (iris not necessarily necessary but cornea bulge is).

Load a Gen 8 eye shader.

Kill reflectivity on sclera and iris (iris is depending on taste but because DAZ flagship eyes setup has the iris bleeding into the sclera, sclera needs no reflectivity or a mask in order not to produce an impressively ugly reflection ring in the iris).

Make sure Cornea and Eye Moisture have Thin Walled turned off. This allows refraction. If Eye Moisture has heavy bump turn it down a lot.

But now! Your eyes are very dark because the diffuse textures are not set up for Cornea and Eye Moisture to be volumes. So set your diffuse strength on sclera and iris between 2 and 4. If the sclera veins render too red kill off a bit of that with a blue/green tint. You can also adjust the textures in photoshop to avoid the saturation issues, preferable but less straightforward.

Turn up bump on iris for more detailed look.

This should look much better than default. Adjust as needed from here. You may have to turn up Transmission Distance on the Cornea and Eye Moisture to allow light to pass through properly.

And then this one:

200%? That sounds like a bit much. I think at that percentage, the cornea would intersect the eyelid. I wouldn't go over 120% myself....but, different strokes I guess.

Laurie

Settings I gave are a brief overview to get close to these results:

imageimage

 

It sounds like nightmarishly too high but it is the only way I have found to get the light to refract onto the iris correctly.

Also I've attached my sclera glossy maps for blending out the white ring, in case like me you have some settings where you still want glossiness on the sclera.

 

Comments

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    I gave your setup a try, agent unawares, and I have some questions.

    1. When you say to adjust the iris inwards, are you referring the "Iris Correction" morph? (This was my assumption.)
    2. What "Base Mixing" are you using: PBR Metallicity/Roughness, PBR Secular/Glossiness, or Weighted?
    3. What parameters do you use to "kill reflectivity" on the sclera and the iris?
    4. What parameters do you use to control "diffuse strength"?
    5. Where do your recommend putting the "blue/green tint" to offset red veins in the sclera?

    I'm encouraged with these steps. 200% on the corneal bulge looks really weird with the viewport set to Smooth Shaded, but I could also see that the morph wasn't intersecting the eyelids except for a very small amount on the upper lid. IMO, it's not enough to be an issue once the proper shader is applied.

    Thank you for sharing both your setup and your images.

  • Also https://www.daz3d.com/project-eyeray-next-gen-and-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8

    It's got a new UV map and he uses normals on the cornea which gives the right refraction through it on the iris.

  • L'Adair said:

    I gave your setup a try, agent unawares, and I have some questions.

    When you say to adjust the iris inwards, are you referring the "Iris Correction" morph? (This was my assumption.)

    Whoooooops. I was using an Iris Concave morph that came with a Saiyaness character. I thought it was default. (Why is there no default Iris Concave morph?!?) Anything that pushes the iris in a bit should work though. j cade has some iris morphs here that could be converted to G8 if all else fails. I think the iris adjustment is the least important part of making eyes look realistic, though, much less important than getting a decent cornea bulge.

    L'Adair said:

    What "Base Mixing" are you using: PBR Metallicity/Roughness, PBR Secular/Glossiness, or Weighted?

    Metallicity/Roughness, though I don't think it's too important. The others should work also. This just changes the way you would get your preferred gloss levels.

    L'Adair said:

    What parameters do you use to "kill reflectivity" on the sclera and the iris?

    0 strength on Glossy Layered Weight and Top Coat Weight. Alternatively, plug in the map to mask out the iris part on the sclera.

    L'Adair said:

    What parameters do you use to control "diffuse strength"?

    You have to show hidden properties on the uber shader. Then there will be a Diffuse Strength setting under Base Color.

    L'Adair said:

    Where do your recommend putting the "blue/green tint" to offset red veins in the sclera?

    I'm putting it in Base Color.

    L'Adair said:

    I'm encouraged with these steps. 200% on the corneal bulge looks really weird with the viewport set to Smooth Shaded, but I could also see that the morph wasn't intersecting the eyelids except for a very small amount on the upper lid. IMO, it's not enough to be an issue once the proper shader is applied.

    Yes, it looks really bizarre at first. I couldn't believe it either.

    L'Adair said:

    Thank you for sharing both your setup and your images.

    No problem.

    scleraglossystrength.jpg
    2048 x 2048 - 65K
  • Also https://www.daz3d.com/project-eyeray-next-gen-and-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8

    It's got a new UV map and he uses normals on the cornea which gives the right refraction through it on the iris.

    I like this very much, problem is the UV remap. I think it's a much better setup but I like all my other eye textures to work too.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    I bought Project EYEray as well. Like agent unawares, though, I like being able to use eye textures included with the characters as well. The more tools in the toolbox, the better.
    laugh

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675
    edited October 2017

    huh?  surprise no comprende 

    g8 eyes differ from g3?

    Post edited by Mistara on
  • Mistara said:

    huh?  surprise no comprende 

    g8 eyes differ from g3?

    No, I think they're the same. But in G8 flagship figures DAZ started texturing the iris out onto the sclera materials, which causes problems.

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    Mistara said:

    huh?  surprise no comprende 

    g8 eyes differ from g3?

    The templates are the same, but the mesh is different. I may have some sample renders showing the difference. If no one beats me to it, I'll post some of those.

  • Mistara said:

    huh?  surprise no comprende 

    g8 eyes differ from g3?

    No, I think they're the same. But in G8 flagship figures DAZ started texturing the iris out onto the sclera materials, which causes problems.

    The eye geometry is changed in Genesis 8 - the slight overlap between separate Cornea and Iris mesh has been replaced with a single surface.

  • Mistara said:

    huh?  surprise no comprende 

    g8 eyes differ from g3?

    No, I think they're the same. But in G8 flagship figures DAZ started texturing the iris out onto the sclera materials, which causes problems.

    The eye geometry is changed in Genesis 8 - the slight overlap between separate Cornea and Iris mesh has been replaced with a single surface.

    Huh, I wasn't aware of that, I always thought G3 was one surface.

  • Also https://www.daz3d.com/project-eyeray-next-gen-and-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8

    It's got a new UV map and he uses normals on the cornea which gives the right refraction through it on the iris.

    I like this very much, problem is the UV remap. I think it's a much better setup but I like all my other eye textures to work too.

    But if you use the material settings with you own eye maps, it works quite nicely. The biggest improvement with his UV is on the limbal ring. But the white ring comes from (largely) folks using G3 materials on the eyes. A lot of setups have a transmap on the cornea to get a nice soft blend on the limbal ring, but because the geometry is different, it makes it worse in G8. Also, the cornea bulge enhances the bright ring because of the way the light refracts. Without the transmapped cornea or cornea bulge, you won't have a white ring problem. You still want the cornea to bulge though, and EYERay uses a normal map to simulate this nicely without creating the ring. 

     

  • xyer0xyer0 Posts: 5,638

    I look forward to implementing these fixes. I wonder why Daz changed the eye geometry. It seems to cause more problems than it solved. This reminds me of what they did from Generation 4 to Genesis.

  • xyer0 said:

    I look forward to implementing these fixes. I wonder why Daz changed the eye geometry. It seems to cause more problems than it solved. This reminds me of what they did from Generation 4 to Genesis.

    Oh no no no... the geometry is *so* much better this way. It makes morphing and changing the eyes *so* much easier as well as texturing bizarre and inhuman style eyes so much better. We needed a transmap on the cornea previously to create a nice, soft limbal ring transition between the iris and sclera on previous gens because the geometry was separate. The workarounds we had to use to compensate for the separated geometry that we're holding onto are really what's causing the issues here. 

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,139
    edited October 2017

    I have tried applying the formula for eyes that Agent Unawares has described, and I get horrible shadows in the eyes as soon as I turn off Thin Walled, and the subsequent changes don't seem to fix it (see image). Any ideas on how to fix this?

    EyeTest - Bulge 200% Agent Unawares Materials.png
    800 x 560 - 1M
    Post edited by PhilW on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 1,859
    edited October 2017

    They are not really fixable AFAIK. We are lacking something like the ability to disable shadows on surfaces. Of course one could ask: how is it that Iray as an unbiased renderer simulates lighting as it happens in the physical world, yet we get shadows on the iris whereas the same thing doesn't happen in real life? Or at least not to that extend. Is it a different geometry in reality? Is it just that the light rays in a renderer are limited and so not enough will ever reach into that small part of the eye? 

    I'm a bit confuzzled by this. We've had plenty of discussion on the matter in the Iray rendering thread but not much came out of it other than the conclusion that thin walled on looks flat, off looks more like it should but will produce a shadow, more or less pronounced depending on your lighting.

    Post edited by bluejaunte on
  • Also https://www.daz3d.com/project-eyeray-next-gen-and-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8

    It's got a new UV map and he uses normals on the cornea which gives the right refraction through it on the iris.

    I like this very much, problem is the UV remap. I think it's a much better setup but I like all my other eye textures to work too.

    But if you use the material settings with you own eye maps, it works quite nicely. The biggest improvement with his UV is on the limbal ring. But the white ring comes from (largely) folks using G3 materials on the eyes. A lot of setups have a transmap on the cornea to get a nice soft blend on the limbal ring, but because the geometry is different, it makes it worse in G8. Also, the cornea bulge enhances the bright ring because of the way the light refracts. Without the transmapped cornea or cornea bulge, you won't have a white ring problem. You still want the cornea to bulge though, and EYERay uses a normal map to simulate this nicely without creating the ring.

    You may be getting a white ring for other reasons than I was. My white ring came from having specularity on the sclera material, and because DAZ started making the iris bleed into the sclera there were white highlights in the outer iris where there shouldn't have been. It was not caused by the cornea (I've seen cornea bulge cause a different white ring more centrally in the iris in certain lighting situations though).

    I will have to try out the Eyeray cornea normals and see what they do, it may in fact be a much better solution.

  • agent unawaresagent unawares Posts: 3,513
    edited October 2017
    PhilW said:

    I have tried applying the formula for eyes that Agent Unawares has described, and I get horrible shadows in the eyes as soon as I turn off Thin Walled, and the subsequent changes don't seem to fix it (see image). Any ideas on how to fix this?

    First thing I would do is run the render longer. A lot of those "under glass" shadows brighten up with render time.

    Which character and lighting is this? I will try to see what I can come up with. I don't get that kind of blotchy shadow even with lighting angled from the side like that, I get this:

    image

    It may be a quirk of that light setup or just something I've missed.

    render.png
    356 x 191 - 107K
    Post edited by agent unawares on
  • I'm a bit confuzzled by this. We've had plenty of discussion on the matter in the Iray rendering thread but not much came out of it other than the conclusion that thin walled on looks flat, off looks more like it should but will produce a shadow, more or less pronounced depending on your lighting.

    I suspect part of the problem is diffuse textures being set up for thin walled rendering. A lot of the lighting effects have been "set" so when we try to set up realistic geometry and refraction then we are trying to set them again on top of what it already there.

    It is really weird how much a simple, very thin layer of water darkens what is underneath it in Iray though. It doesn't really behave like what I would expect to be normal. Maybe eye moisture is too far apart from the sclera material.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,139
    edited October 2017

    The character is a default G8F and the lighting is the default HDRI rotated 60 degrees. The textures are default G8F but adapted for iRay.  I wasn't able to change the iris shape as I don't yet have a morph for that.

    Post edited by PhilW on
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,139
    edited October 2017

    Here are V8 iRay textures with the all the adjustments which you recommended and rendered for 2000 samples per pixel.  The blotchiness has more or less gone but there is still something strange going on on the iris. Maybe the iris morph would help this but as I say, I don't currently have one that I can use (may have to make my own!).

    EyeTest - Bulge 200% Agent Unawares Materials-Long.png
    800 x 560 - 838K
    Post edited by PhilW on
  • I looked at the G8F default materials and there is definitely something weird with her default Cornea and Eye Moisture settings that makes them not play nice with the adjustments. I'm not really sure why and I'm not going to track down the details. Good default settings for these are: load the DAZ Uber Shader Water preset to both the cornea and eye moisture, then change refractive index to 1.376 (this is average real world refractive index of cornea).

    I tried how the different cornea bulge settings affect the way the light refracts into the eye for quick reference in case 200% looks too high. These are all with a flat iris, default HDRI rotated 60 degrees like your first image.

    It does seem like there should be more scattering of the light inside the eye and not so hard edges. I'm not sure how to accomplish that, though.

    0.png
    400 x 400 - 262K
    100.png
    400 x 400 - 262K
    150.png
    400 x 400 - 263K
    175.png
    400 x 400 - 262K
    200.png
    400 x 400 - 262K
    100notex.png
    400 x 400 - 259K
    150 notex.png
    400 x 400 - 260K
    200notex.png
    400 x 400 - 259K
  • jag11jag11 Posts: 885

    The only thing I correct on eye textures is White Balance on sclera, to me sclera looks ill like in conjunctivitis. On the surfaces I turn off translucency for all textured maps, the rest is Iray water material.

    Default TextureWhite Balanced Texture

  • VisuimagVisuimag Posts: 547

    I've gotten some pretty decent results

     

    My GENESIS 8.png
    3840 x 2160 - 7M
    GENESIS 8 (no logo).png
    3840 x 2160 - 4M
Sign In or Register to comment.