Did you know you can quickly and easily make a stylized eye material with only a few nodes?
In this Blender tutorial I will show you how to make a stylized procedural eye material in Blender.
Eye
To make a stylized procedural eye material, we first need an eye
So, delete the cube and add a UV sphere
Using the R-key and X-key, rotate the sphere around the X-Axis 90-degrees so it is facing forward
Using F2 you can rename the sphere
In edit mode, use the C-key to access the circle select tool
Using the scroll wheel, change the size of the circle of influence until it is encompassing the inner three rings of faces
Left-click to select those faces
Right-click to close the circle select tool
In x-ray mode and the side-view, use the G and Y keys to move these faces back along the Y-Axis
Back in solid mode and the front view, go into edge select mode with 2
Select the outer edges of the rings of faces you just moved by using SHIFT + ALT + Left-click
Using CTRL + B add a small bevel to help smooth those edges
In object mode, right-click on the eye and choose “shade smooth”
Under the object data properties tab, under the normals panel, activate auto smooth
For the cornea, add a second UV sphere and rotate it around the X-Axis 90-degrees
Hide the eye
In edit mode, delete everything except the 4 inner-rings of faces
Right-click on the cornea and shade it smooth -remember to activate auto smooth
Unhide the eye using ALT + H and hide the cornea with the H-key
Material
Now it is time for the material
Split the viewport and open the shader editor
Change to material preview mode so you can see the material on the eye
Select the eye and add a material – renaming it
We will leave the base color white
Change the specular and specular tint to 1 and the roughness to around 0.2
For the pupil, in face select mode (shortcut key is 3), using circle select, select the pupil
Make a new material and assign this new material to the selected faces
Change the base color to an almost-black color
Change the specular, specular tint, and roughness to 0
For the iris, in face select mode, use SHIFT + ALT + Left-click to select the faces associated with the iris
Make a new material and assign this new material to the selected faces
Change the base color to your chosen color [#4DC3E7]
Change the specular, specular tint, and roughness to 0
Unhide the cornea using ALT + H
Make a new material for the cornea
Delete the principled shader and add a glass shader
For Eevee, under the material properties tab, under the settings panel, activate screen space refraction
Under the render properties tab, activate the screen space reflections
Twirl open this panel and activate refraction
For cycles, under the material properties tab, under the viewport display panel – under the settings option, activate screen space refraction