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This tutorial will cover over how I make eyes, it's not the "correct" way to do them since there isn't such thing as correct way and everyone should just concentrate on finding the way that suits them. But after over 50 eyesets I dare say that for me personally this is the "correct" way to go through the whole process. (as far as the speed and quality go that is) We'll go through both photoskinning eyes and drawing them (drawing as in: creating texture from scratch) and finally I'll also cover my super lazy (and efficient) way to recolor them. Without further ado...
You'll need:
Step 0. So for the starters, open up bodyshop and pick eyes to use as base. It's probably a good idea to choose one that already has sclera that you like so you won't have to swap that out later. Also if there are options choose eye color that is very light, I usually try to pick light gray or blue or if such exists white. Start a new project with your chosen eye, name it something you can recognize and then navigate into documets > EA Games > Sims 2 > Projects > Your project name.
Step 2. Open the eye texture from your project folder and that image of the eye you plan to use in photoshop. At this point you don't need to open the swatch yet, we'll do that later. So here we go, the base eye texture and the picture from which we are going to borrow the eyes from.
Step 3. Firstly let's clear the old eye texture away from the eye, choose your Sim eye file and zoom close in to, I usually work with 300% 'cause that's about the perfect distance to work for me but use whatever feels comfortable for you. Create a new layer, either by clicking this icon:
or just hit ctrl+shift+n (note that picture has been shrinken considerably. If you can't see that kind of view at the right side, on the top navigation bar click on Window > Layers and it will show up)
Step 4. On this new layer, use eyedrop tool to get the color of the eyewhite and use soft brush (in the first picture below is my favorite, the 75 airbrush, it should be included to photoshop by default so you don't need to download anything. You do however need to make it smaller, try something between 15-30 size and it's good idea to set the opacity around 30-40% too) and gently draw over the eye. Don't worry if your hand slips, that's why we used a new layer so you can just erase where needed or delete the whole layer if you truly messed up and start over. After you're done with that we have the now irisless eye base all ready for new texture.
Step 5. Now choose the picture with your eyes and decide which eye looks better (and/or will need less editing) and then use the polygonal lasso to about choose it (again it's good idea to zoom closer) you don't have to choose exactly according to its lines 'cause we can later erase them and they'll be hidden behind the eye white anyway (we'll get to that in steps 11-12 )
Step 6. Now copy the chosen texture, either by hitting ctrl+c on your keyboard or by choosing Edit > Copy and then choose the Sim eye texture file again and paste the texture over there by choosing Edit > Paste /or ctrl+v.
(I can already tell that the eye texture I used is bit too big so I'm going back to resize the eye image bit smaller. You can always use ctrl+t and drag it bit smaller that way but that will lower the texture quality. You can get some of it back by using sharpen but when possible it's definitely better to just make the original picture smaller and copying the eye again from it in the desired size)
Step 7. Press ctrl+t on your keyboard or choose Edit > Free Transform and use that to turn the eye right way and move it to the right place. (I tried to make that picture show it step by step. Don't laugh at it ^^; )
Step 8. Save the file now to see how it looks in bodyshop and refresh the bodyshop file. (DO NOT merge layers, instead use the "save as..." and save it that way) If everything looks good here and you're happy and only planning on making this one color then congrats, you're done with this and can move to making the swatch image (tutorial further down). If not and/or you wish to make more colors there's still more to come so don't quit yet.
Step 9. Well now since we're still continuing my eye seems to be bit deformed and I'm not too sure about that light line on the rigth side of it either so we gotta do something about those. Create a new layer again (ctrl+shift+n) and use the eyedropper tool to pick color from the eye and then choose tiny sharp brush (again I'm using just the regular ones included with the program, Hard Round brush from the top row in 1 pixel size) and just draw over the areas you wish to hide (in my case that light line) you'll have to adjust the color of the brush you use depending on the surrounding colors so this will probably take a while. Again we're doing this on separate layer so that if you mess up you can just clear the whole layer
Step 10. Well now the light line is gone but the eye is still bit deformed. (the left side of it is much rounder than the right, see below)
We'll fix that in a moment, for now go back to the bottom layer and make copy of it (yes that layer you started with) choose the layer, right click and duplicate. Above it should be the layer you colored white for covering the eyeball, choose it and the Background copy layer (you can do that by pressing Ctrl while clicking) and then merge those two layers together (either choose it from the right click list or hit ctrl+e)
Step 11. Duplicate the layer you just created and move it on top of the layers list. Now this seems really random since obviously that will hide the eye were working on but trust me, I know what I'm doing ;)
Step 12. Set the layer slightly transparent by turning down the Opacity so that you can about see where the iris of the eye is and take sharp eraser brush. Carefully erase a hole to where the iris is. This is where you can reshape the eye too so if the other side is rounder than the other just don't reveal that part. Or if you need to add bit to either side make hole there too and then go back to the layer where you edited the eye earlier and add bit of the color there (that's what I'm doing on the right side of the eye in this case) Best part is that you don't have to be very neat anymore with the iris layer 'cause it will be hidden under the sclera layer anyway.
Bonus pictures: if I hide the sclera layer my eye texture under it looks like this now:
But if we turn the sclera layer back on it looks nice and neat:
In bodyshop this now looks pretty good already:
We could leave it at that but 'cause I never leave anything as is we're going to continue bit more :D
Step 13. This step will have two options, if you like the pupil and catchlight the eye has follow guide starting at 13.a.1 and if not skip to 13.b.1)
13.a.2 (optional step) I'm not fan of the catchlight being blue so let's desaturate it:
13.a.3 Check how it looks in bodyshop and if you're happy with it you can move to the next part. (Step 14) (it seems I forgot to take a picture of how this turned out ^^; )
13.b.2 Again make a new layer, if your base color is lighter than mine you should draw the pupil there. Basically the pupil is just a dot. Depending on the look you're after it can be sharp or soft, I usually make it sharp, then blur it lightly and the redraw the sharp pupil again over the blurred one. Because the eyes I used as base are so dark I made the pupil green just so that it shows up in these pictures (it will be turned into black one before we move to to recoloring part). Save and check that it looks like you wanted it to look in bodyshop.
13.b.3 Once you're happy with the position/size/look of your pupil create another new layer, this time were making catchlight. This is another part where you can be as creative as you wish. It's both my favorite and most hated part of eye making because I can never decide what kind of catchlights to use. If you have other eye textures at hand you can of course just borrow the catchlights/pupils from those (just cut and paste them over to your texture) OR if you want you can grab my PSD file posted here and use one those instead.
14. Optional Step: If you're like me and like dark shadows over your eyes make a new layer over the sclera layer, choose black soft brush (I use the same brush from step 4 made into around 16 size again with 30-60 Opacity) and draw a line over the top of the eye (shown in green again so that you can actually see it) (or grab one from this psd, choose suitable layer and paste it over your texture) test it in bodyshop to make sure it shades the places you want it to shade and edit until you're happy with it. (you also might want to set the highlight layer over this layer so that it won't be shaded)
Step 1. Firstly complete step 0 above and also if you wish to you can find some picture to use as reference for the look you're going for.
Step 2. Open the eye texture from your project folder in photoshop. At this point you don't need to open the swatch yet, we'll do that later. (don't mind the photo behind, I reused the picture from photoskinning tutorial 'cause the step is literally exactly the same as there)
Step 3. Firstly let's clear the old eye texture away from the eye, choose your Sim eye file and zoom close in to, I usually work with 300% 'cause that's about the perfect distance to work for me but use whatever feels comfortable for you. Create a new layer, either by clicking this icon:
or just hit ctrl+shift+n (note that picture has been shrinken considerably. If you can't see that kind of view at the right side on the top navigation bar click on Window > Layers and it will show up)
Step 4. On this new layer, use eyedrop tool to get the color of the eyewhite and use soft brush (in the first picture below is my favorite, the 75 airbrush, it should be included to photoshop by default so you don't need to download anything. You do however need to make it smaller, try something between 15-30 size and it's good idea to set the opacity around 30-40% too) and gently draw over the eye. Don't worry if your hand slips, that's why we used a new layer so you can just erase where needed or delete the whole layer if you truly messed up and start over. After you're done with that we have the now irisless eye base all ready for new texture.
You can merge the drawn white part with the background layer or make a copy of the background and merge it with that one instead already.
Step 5. Now let's take a look at the linked tutorial, their first step is to create a new document of 265px height, well that's second life eye size so it won't really work for us so we'll need another way to come up with suitable size. So first of all just pick a gray color to use as your base (can be lighter or darker than mine but I simply chose gray from around middle of the grays) Then open up your brushes and just pick a regular round brush (19) from the top line and change the size to around 30. In the picture below you can see the brush hovered over the white sclera, that looks about right size to me so I'll go with that (you can make it smaller or bigger depending on the look you're going for) Don't draw anything yet, we only need the about size of what we're gonna do.
Step 6. Create a new document (file > new /or ctrl+n) set it's size into 60x60 pixels and in the middle with a single click paint your iris texture to be. (make sure brush is set to 100% opacity) (also make sure it really is in the middle unlike mine is in the picture ^^U (I fixed that in later step 'cause the way we make the texture really won't work if it's not in the middle))
Step 7. Duplicate your layer and go to filter > add noise > 30%
and then go to filter > blur > radial blur > amount 100 - zoom - draft
and you should get something like this:
Step 8. You can still continue following the linked tutorial if you wish but from here I'll move what we have to the sim texture file and continue there. (also if you end up continuing with that tutorial DO NOT merge the catchlight and pupil layer with the rest when you move them over to the sim file! You'll need them on separate layers) Firstly choose the layer 1 and use the magic wand to click around it to get the area chosen and then click on the layer copy and hit delete to erase all the messy lines around the iris. Merge the two layers (ctrl+shift+e) (if the texture looks too heavy, you can set the layer opacity bit lower before merging) and then hit ctrl+a to choose whole thing and ctrl+c to copy it. Then click on the sim texture file and paste it over there with ctrl+v. You should have something like this.
Step 9. Move the iris on the eye and save (don't merge layers, use "save as..." and save as .bmp over the file, we want to keep those layers still.) And then refresh in bodyshop until you have the eyes positioned where you want them.
(looks creepy as hell, I know, but it will start getting prettier soon I promise)
Step 10. If you didn't already do it back in set 4 now go ahead and merge together background and the white-paint over layer and create a copy of that newly merged layer and move it on top of all the other layers. Now the eyewhite layer is on top of the things, set the layer slightly transparent by turning down the opacity so that you can about see where the iris of the eye is and take sharp eraser brush. Carefully erase a hole to where the iris is.
This is where you can reshape the eye/edit the size smaller. Best part is that you don't have to be very neat anymore on the iris layer 'cause it will be hidden under the sclera layer anyway.
Step 11. Now we start the serious texture editing so just in case, make a copy of your iris layer, you don't wanna ruin it okay? First things first, I'm not too fond of how sharp the texture looks so I'm going to blur it just a teeny bit (filter > blur > gaussian blur > 0.2 yeah that little, anything more destroys too much of the texture for me) After that I'll use bit of burn tool.
I have it set to 19% exposure to have bit better control over it so things don't get too dark too quickly. Here shown in red are the areas I burned:
and here's it without the red overlay:
already starting to look bit more like an eye! (still creepy in bodyshop though)
Step 12. Then let's add bit more depth into them and use Dodge tool, I added some to the areas shown in yellow
Step 13. Now would be good time to add the pupil, create a new layer and just pick a black brush and draw the pupil in any size you wish it to be. I usually add bit off blur and then draw it again couple brush sizes smaller but that's just me, you don't have to do it that way, just do what feels and looks good to you.
and look, our eyes are starting to almost look like eyes already:
Now this is optional but I like having the dark shadow over my eyes so I'm going to add that now. Make a new layer over the topmost sclera layer, choose black soft brush and draw a line over the top of the eye. Test it in bodyshop to make sure it shades the places you want it to shade and edit until you're happy with it. (or use a shadow from my shared psd here.)
again looking bit less creepy already! If you want this is also where you can still do some tweaking to your iris, pupil etc.(I personally ended up adding bit more of of burn after this)
Step 14. Let's draw the catchlight next, choose the topmost sclera layer (or if you made the shadow then that) and create a new layer on top of that. You should pick a sharp small brush and set the color white. I don't really have any set style or way to describe how to draw the shine, I usually just draw small dots or lines, smudge them, blur them, yell at them and curse them to the lowest hell, start all over with them.... you get my point right? Just try things out until you have something that you think looks good. Also do remember that you can also add catchlights over the sclera area, eyes are wet after all so that shining isn't weird at all. You can also use multiple layers for this if wanted, for example if you wanted part to be more transparent than other parts just make that part on separate layer and set the opacity bit lower. Like this:
And this will be the final outcome:
(this method will likely give you the most realistic catchlights so definitely experiment with it if that's your goal. :3 )
Once you're happy with how your eye looks like we can move to the swatch and recoloring. Note that the swatch and recoloring tutorial below again use pictures from the photoskinning eyes tutorial but the method is exactly the same regardless, you simply get to skip the desaturating part 'cause we already made the eye base in gray color.
Making the Swatch (optional feel free to skip)
Before we move onto the recoloring your eye needs a swatch, now you could just merge all the layers, choose the corner square where the texture is, copy that and paste it over the swatch BUT we can make them prettier and this way you won't have to go back in the history to unmerge the files between every color, pretty good deal eh? So what do we do? Firstly, export your eye as it is. Yes really, we'll delete that one in a moment so it's fine. Secondly you probably have some cute sims saved in your bin right? Go to "Build Sim" and pick one whose eye shape you think would suit the eye well or just make a new sim and use that. I'll use my sim Asha for this one.
After removing all the extra makeup she had over her eyes and giving her the new eyes she's looking like this
Now click on F3 to enable the free camera mode and zoom in closer, you can also hide the interface by hitting F9. I've found that the "right" amount of zooming in is about when the sim loses its nose like this:
It's not pretty but that doesn't matter 'cause we only really need the eye and bits of its surrounding areas, take a print screen of that and make new file with it in photoshop (new file and paste the picture). (you can now delete the swatch-less eye and then return back to your project) Open the swatch file of the eyes from the project folder and in the screenshot choose the other eye of the sim (whichever you wish to use) and then using the rectangular marque tool choose the eye and copy that and paste it over the swatch:
Resize/move if needed, there we have the base for the swatch but we're still not done with it.
Merge the eye-swatch texture over the default one and then duplicate it. Hide the background one and then use eraser to remove the iris pupil etc. Yes, I want a hole there like this:
After that's done you can bring the Background back into visibility and I want you to choose that layer. Go back to your main eye file and take a look at your layers, hide the topmost sclera (white part of the eye), pupil, catchlights, shadow (if you made one) and the background layer and merge the rest together. Use the marque tool and select a square around the iris:
Copy and paste that over the swatch file and ctrl+t rotate it right way (90° ccw) and position it to the hole you created earlier.
Repeat the same thing for the pupil and catchlights (you can tilt the catchligth slightly if your eye in the swatch isn't completely straight to make it look more natural) and hey look, pretty swatch is ready.
To make it recoloring friendly merge the iris and background layer together (just do it, trust me) and then we can move to the next step
Yes it will revert back to the blank document state, that's fine just paste the already desatured file there now. As you can see we can now easily tell that to get back to this state all that needs to be done is clicking the very first history state. That's a good thing 'cause it makes it easier to find.
Repeat the same with the swatch (use the background file for that)
This is how my photoshop is set up now, there are the eye files, swatch files and the recolorable versions of them both. (never mind that it looks like I have the sclera layer hidden for the eye texture, it obviously should be turned visible)
Now it's important that you have the iris texture layer chosen in both and everything else is above it, we'll be piling the recolored files on top of that layer. Like this:
First things first though, save the base color files and export your first eye color (if you can't think of tooltip those can always be added later in simpe or wardrobe wrangler)
After exporting you can copy and paste the already made gray files as first recolor for the eyes (and below you can also see where the colored layer went on the layers list)
and then simply start recoloring the gray files into other colors, I use Trapping's and my own color actions for that, just run action, copy and paste the file over the eye/swatch texture, save, export, choose the gray texture again and revert it to the first step in the history, run next action and rinse and repeat until you got all colors done. Or if you want you can recolor them by hand with hue/saturation, brightness/contrast, color balance etc sliders, I'm just really lazy so actions are the best way to go for me to go. (below you can see bit of how my layers are looking after about 35 colors. I don't ever merge the layers so that I can save the file as psd for possible later use after I'm done)
Extra tip: If it feels like your base gray is too dark try running Trapping's action 2 or 3 over it, that will lighten it. If your problem is the opposite, it's too light then try running action 4 or 5.
And that's it pretty much. Anything written here can also be used to edit existing eyes, you'll just need to extract their textures first for using. If there's anything more anybody would like me to cover lemme know and I'll try to update this as soon as possible :3
You'll need:
- Bodyshop (obviously) & the basic know-how on using it because I won't cover that part.
- Picture editing program that supports layers (I use Photoshop CS3 in this tutorial)
- If photoskinning eyes the photo of the eyes you wish to use, the bigger and higher quality the better (I'll use picture from facity.com in this tutorial)
- Drawing tablet if you wish to draw eyes (it can be done with mouse too, I usually only use tablet for drawing the catchlights) In this tutorial I won't be using it at all though.
Step 0. So for the starters, open up bodyshop and pick eyes to use as base. It's probably a good idea to choose one that already has sclera that you like so you won't have to swap that out later. Also if there are options choose eye color that is very light, I usually try to pick light gray or blue or if such exists white. Start a new project with your chosen eye, name it something you can recognize and then navigate into documets > EA Games > Sims 2 > Projects > Your project name.
Photoskinning eyes
Step 1. Firstly complete step 0 above and also go ahead and find picture of the eyes you wish to use. Do mind that if you plan to make recolors lighter colors for the photo are always better than dark ones so if the picture you use is from black or brown eye you might not be able to make good recolors of it. Despite that though I think I'll go with these eyes.Step 2. Open the eye texture from your project folder and that image of the eye you plan to use in photoshop. At this point you don't need to open the swatch yet, we'll do that later. So here we go, the base eye texture and the picture from which we are going to borrow the eyes from.
Step 3. Firstly let's clear the old eye texture away from the eye, choose your Sim eye file and zoom close in to, I usually work with 300% 'cause that's about the perfect distance to work for me but use whatever feels comfortable for you. Create a new layer, either by clicking this icon:
or just hit ctrl+shift+n (note that picture has been shrinken considerably. If you can't see that kind of view at the right side, on the top navigation bar click on Window > Layers and it will show up)
Step 4. On this new layer, use eyedrop tool to get the color of the eyewhite and use soft brush (in the first picture below is my favorite, the 75 airbrush, it should be included to photoshop by default so you don't need to download anything. You do however need to make it smaller, try something between 15-30 size and it's good idea to set the opacity around 30-40% too) and gently draw over the eye. Don't worry if your hand slips, that's why we used a new layer so you can just erase where needed or delete the whole layer if you truly messed up and start over. After you're done with that we have the now irisless eye base all ready for new texture.
Step 5. Now choose the picture with your eyes and decide which eye looks better (and/or will need less editing) and then use the polygonal lasso to about choose it (again it's good idea to zoom closer) you don't have to choose exactly according to its lines 'cause we can later erase them and they'll be hidden behind the eye white anyway (we'll get to that in steps 11-12 )
Step 6. Now copy the chosen texture, either by hitting ctrl+c on your keyboard or by choosing Edit > Copy and then choose the Sim eye texture file again and paste the texture over there by choosing Edit > Paste /or ctrl+v.
(I can already tell that the eye texture I used is bit too big so I'm going back to resize the eye image bit smaller. You can always use ctrl+t and drag it bit smaller that way but that will lower the texture quality. You can get some of it back by using sharpen but when possible it's definitely better to just make the original picture smaller and copying the eye again from it in the desired size)
Step 7. Press ctrl+t on your keyboard or choose Edit > Free Transform and use that to turn the eye right way and move it to the right place. (I tried to make that picture show it step by step. Don't laugh at it ^^; )
Step 8. Save the file now to see how it looks in bodyshop and refresh the bodyshop file. (DO NOT merge layers, instead use the "save as..." and save it that way) If everything looks good here and you're happy and only planning on making this one color then congrats, you're done with this and can move to making the swatch image (tutorial further down). If not and/or you wish to make more colors there's still more to come so don't quit yet.
Step 9. Well now since we're still continuing my eye seems to be bit deformed and I'm not too sure about that light line on the rigth side of it either so we gotta do something about those. Create a new layer again (ctrl+shift+n) and use the eyedropper tool to pick color from the eye and then choose tiny sharp brush (again I'm using just the regular ones included with the program, Hard Round brush from the top row in 1 pixel size) and just draw over the areas you wish to hide (in my case that light line) you'll have to adjust the color of the brush you use depending on the surrounding colors so this will probably take a while. Again we're doing this on separate layer so that if you mess up you can just clear the whole layer
Step 10. Well now the light line is gone but the eye is still bit deformed. (the left side of it is much rounder than the right, see below)
We'll fix that in a moment, for now go back to the bottom layer and make copy of it (yes that layer you started with) choose the layer, right click and duplicate. Above it should be the layer you colored white for covering the eyeball, choose it and the Background copy layer (you can do that by pressing Ctrl while clicking) and then merge those two layers together (either choose it from the right click list or hit ctrl+e)
Step 11. Duplicate the layer you just created and move it on top of the layers list. Now this seems really random since obviously that will hide the eye were working on but trust me, I know what I'm doing ;)
Step 12. Set the layer slightly transparent by turning down the Opacity so that you can about see where the iris of the eye is and take sharp eraser brush. Carefully erase a hole to where the iris is. This is where you can reshape the eye too so if the other side is rounder than the other just don't reveal that part. Or if you need to add bit to either side make hole there too and then go back to the layer where you edited the eye earlier and add bit of the color there (that's what I'm doing on the right side of the eye in this case) Best part is that you don't have to be very neat anymore with the iris layer 'cause it will be hidden under the sclera layer anyway.
Bonus pictures: if I hide the sclera layer my eye texture under it looks like this now:
But if we turn the sclera layer back on it looks nice and neat:
In bodyshop this now looks pretty good already:
We could leave it at that but 'cause I never leave anything as is we're going to continue bit more :D
Step 13. This step will have two options, if you like the pupil and catchlight the eye has follow guide starting at 13.a.1 and if not skip to 13.b.1)
First option:
13.a.1 We're now going to grab the pupil and catchlight, just use the polygonal lasso and choose about the right area, copy it (Image > copy or ctrl+c) and paste (Image > paste or ctrl+v) over itself so that it will become its own layer. If you end up getting bits of the eye texture along with the pupil and catchlight use tiny sharp eraser to get rid of that.13.a.2 (optional step) I'm not fan of the catchlight being blue so let's desaturate it:
13.a.3 Check how it looks in bodyshop and if you're happy with it you can move to the next part. (Step 14) (it seems I forgot to take a picture of how this turned out ^^; )
And the other Option:
13.b.1 so you don't like the catchlight/pupil of the eye? This is bit trickier but similarly to step 9, create new layer and just draw over those pesky highlights/pupil with suitable color. (note that by "drawing" I mostly mean just click the mouse around the place and try to keep the look of the eye and remember to change the color around) My eye now looks like this:13.b.2 Again make a new layer, if your base color is lighter than mine you should draw the pupil there. Basically the pupil is just a dot. Depending on the look you're after it can be sharp or soft, I usually make it sharp, then blur it lightly and the redraw the sharp pupil again over the blurred one. Because the eyes I used as base are so dark I made the pupil green just so that it shows up in these pictures (it will be turned into black one before we move to to recoloring part). Save and check that it looks like you wanted it to look in bodyshop.
13.b.3 Once you're happy with the position/size/look of your pupil create another new layer, this time were making catchlight. This is another part where you can be as creative as you wish. It's both my favorite and most hated part of eye making because I can never decide what kind of catchlights to use. If you have other eye textures at hand you can of course just borrow the catchlights/pupils from those (just cut and paste them over to your texture) OR if you want you can grab my PSD file posted here and use one those instead.
14. Optional Step: If you're like me and like dark shadows over your eyes make a new layer over the sclera layer, choose black soft brush (I use the same brush from step 4 made into around 16 size again with 30-60 Opacity) and draw a line over the top of the eye (shown in green again so that you can actually see it) (or grab one from this psd, choose suitable layer and paste it over your texture) test it in bodyshop to make sure it shades the places you want it to shade and edit until you're happy with it. (you also might want to set the highlight layer over this layer so that it won't be shaded)
Drawing eyes
Alright then, This part is more about drawing eyes (drawing here meaning "creating texture from scratch" instead of literally drawing it pixel by pixel) To be fair it's basically the same as above but instead of borrowing texture from a photo you will be making it. My method is heavily based on the one described here because it's very quick and easy method. Quick and easy are my favorite things in the world!Step 1. Firstly complete step 0 above and also if you wish to you can find some picture to use as reference for the look you're going for.
Step 2. Open the eye texture from your project folder in photoshop. At this point you don't need to open the swatch yet, we'll do that later. (don't mind the photo behind, I reused the picture from photoskinning tutorial 'cause the step is literally exactly the same as there)
Step 3. Firstly let's clear the old eye texture away from the eye, choose your Sim eye file and zoom close in to, I usually work with 300% 'cause that's about the perfect distance to work for me but use whatever feels comfortable for you. Create a new layer, either by clicking this icon:
or just hit ctrl+shift+n (note that picture has been shrinken considerably. If you can't see that kind of view at the right side on the top navigation bar click on Window > Layers and it will show up)
Step 4. On this new layer, use eyedrop tool to get the color of the eyewhite and use soft brush (in the first picture below is my favorite, the 75 airbrush, it should be included to photoshop by default so you don't need to download anything. You do however need to make it smaller, try something between 15-30 size and it's good idea to set the opacity around 30-40% too) and gently draw over the eye. Don't worry if your hand slips, that's why we used a new layer so you can just erase where needed or delete the whole layer if you truly messed up and start over. After you're done with that we have the now irisless eye base all ready for new texture.
You can merge the drawn white part with the background layer or make a copy of the background and merge it with that one instead already.
Step 5. Now let's take a look at the linked tutorial, their first step is to create a new document of 265px height, well that's second life eye size so it won't really work for us so we'll need another way to come up with suitable size. So first of all just pick a gray color to use as your base (can be lighter or darker than mine but I simply chose gray from around middle of the grays) Then open up your brushes and just pick a regular round brush (19) from the top line and change the size to around 30. In the picture below you can see the brush hovered over the white sclera, that looks about right size to me so I'll go with that (you can make it smaller or bigger depending on the look you're going for) Don't draw anything yet, we only need the about size of what we're gonna do.
Step 6. Create a new document (file > new /or ctrl+n) set it's size into 60x60 pixels and in the middle with a single click paint your iris texture to be. (make sure brush is set to 100% opacity) (also make sure it really is in the middle unlike mine is in the picture ^^U (I fixed that in later step 'cause the way we make the texture really won't work if it's not in the middle))
Step 7. Duplicate your layer and go to filter > add noise > 30%
and then go to filter > blur > radial blur > amount 100 - zoom - draft
and you should get something like this:
Step 8. You can still continue following the linked tutorial if you wish but from here I'll move what we have to the sim texture file and continue there. (also if you end up continuing with that tutorial DO NOT merge the catchlight and pupil layer with the rest when you move them over to the sim file! You'll need them on separate layers) Firstly choose the layer 1 and use the magic wand to click around it to get the area chosen and then click on the layer copy and hit delete to erase all the messy lines around the iris. Merge the two layers (ctrl+shift+e) (if the texture looks too heavy, you can set the layer opacity bit lower before merging) and then hit ctrl+a to choose whole thing and ctrl+c to copy it. Then click on the sim texture file and paste it over there with ctrl+v. You should have something like this.
Step 9. Move the iris on the eye and save (don't merge layers, use "save as..." and save as .bmp over the file, we want to keep those layers still.) And then refresh in bodyshop until you have the eyes positioned where you want them.
(looks creepy as hell, I know, but it will start getting prettier soon I promise)
Step 10. If you didn't already do it back in set 4 now go ahead and merge together background and the white-paint over layer and create a copy of that newly merged layer and move it on top of all the other layers. Now the eyewhite layer is on top of the things, set the layer slightly transparent by turning down the opacity so that you can about see where the iris of the eye is and take sharp eraser brush. Carefully erase a hole to where the iris is.
This is where you can reshape the eye/edit the size smaller. Best part is that you don't have to be very neat anymore on the iris layer 'cause it will be hidden under the sclera layer anyway.
Step 11. Now we start the serious texture editing so just in case, make a copy of your iris layer, you don't wanna ruin it okay? First things first, I'm not too fond of how sharp the texture looks so I'm going to blur it just a teeny bit (filter > blur > gaussian blur > 0.2 yeah that little, anything more destroys too much of the texture for me) After that I'll use bit of burn tool.
I have it set to 19% exposure to have bit better control over it so things don't get too dark too quickly. Here shown in red are the areas I burned:
and here's it without the red overlay:
already starting to look bit more like an eye! (still creepy in bodyshop though)
Step 12. Then let's add bit more depth into them and use Dodge tool, I added some to the areas shown in yellow
Step 13. Now would be good time to add the pupil, create a new layer and just pick a black brush and draw the pupil in any size you wish it to be. I usually add bit off blur and then draw it again couple brush sizes smaller but that's just me, you don't have to do it that way, just do what feels and looks good to you.
and look, our eyes are starting to almost look like eyes already:
Now this is optional but I like having the dark shadow over my eyes so I'm going to add that now. Make a new layer over the topmost sclera layer, choose black soft brush and draw a line over the top of the eye. Test it in bodyshop to make sure it shades the places you want it to shade and edit until you're happy with it. (or use a shadow from my shared psd here.)
again looking bit less creepy already! If you want this is also where you can still do some tweaking to your iris, pupil etc.(I personally ended up adding bit more of of burn after this)
Step 14. Let's draw the catchlight next, choose the topmost sclera layer (or if you made the shadow then that) and create a new layer on top of that. You should pick a sharp small brush and set the color white. I don't really have any set style or way to describe how to draw the shine, I usually just draw small dots or lines, smudge them, blur them, yell at them and curse them to the lowest hell, start all over with them.... you get my point right? Just try things out until you have something that you think looks good. Also do remember that you can also add catchlights over the sclera area, eyes are wet after all so that shining isn't weird at all. You can also use multiple layers for this if wanted, for example if you wanted part to be more transparent than other parts just make that part on separate layer and set the opacity bit lower. Like this:
And this will be the final outcome:
(this method will likely give you the most realistic catchlights so definitely experiment with it if that's your goal. :3 )
Once you're happy with how your eye looks like we can move to the swatch and recoloring. Note that the swatch and recoloring tutorial below again use pictures from the photoskinning eyes tutorial but the method is exactly the same regardless, you simply get to skip the desaturating part 'cause we already made the eye base in gray color.
Making the Swatch (optional feel free to skip)
Before we move onto the recoloring your eye needs a swatch, now you could just merge all the layers, choose the corner square where the texture is, copy that and paste it over the swatch BUT we can make them prettier and this way you won't have to go back in the history to unmerge the files between every color, pretty good deal eh? So what do we do? Firstly, export your eye as it is. Yes really, we'll delete that one in a moment so it's fine. Secondly you probably have some cute sims saved in your bin right? Go to "Build Sim" and pick one whose eye shape you think would suit the eye well or just make a new sim and use that. I'll use my sim Asha for this one.
After removing all the extra makeup she had over her eyes and giving her the new eyes she's looking like this
Now click on F3 to enable the free camera mode and zoom in closer, you can also hide the interface by hitting F9. I've found that the "right" amount of zooming in is about when the sim loses its nose like this:
It's not pretty but that doesn't matter 'cause we only really need the eye and bits of its surrounding areas, take a print screen of that and make new file with it in photoshop (new file and paste the picture). (you can now delete the swatch-less eye and then return back to your project) Open the swatch file of the eyes from the project folder and in the screenshot choose the other eye of the sim (whichever you wish to use) and then using the rectangular marque tool choose the eye and copy that and paste it over the swatch:
Resize/move if needed, there we have the base for the swatch but we're still not done with it.
Merge the eye-swatch texture over the default one and then duplicate it. Hide the background one and then use eraser to remove the iris pupil etc. Yes, I want a hole there like this:
After that's done you can bring the Background back into visibility and I want you to choose that layer. Go back to your main eye file and take a look at your layers, hide the topmost sclera (white part of the eye), pupil, catchlights, shadow (if you made one) and the background layer and merge the rest together. Use the marque tool and select a square around the iris:
Copy and paste that over the swatch file and ctrl+t rotate it right way (90° ccw) and position it to the hole you created earlier.
Repeat the same thing for the pupil and catchlights (you can tilt the catchligth slightly if your eye in the swatch isn't completely straight to make it look more natural) and hey look, pretty swatch is ready.
To make it recoloring friendly merge the iris and background layer together (just do it, trust me) and then we can move to the next step
Recoloring the eyes
So firstly, if you didn't already do it in previous step(s), take a look at your layers, hide the sclera, pupil and catchlights and merge the rest together, you should now have just the eye texture. Hit ctrl+a to choose it all and then ctrl+c to make a copy of that, make new document out of it and desaturate it. (save it as separate document if you want to make sure nothing happens to it) then this is laziness tip no. 1 after you've desaturated it use ctrl+a and ctrl+c to make a copy of the now desaturated file and open up the history (window > history) and click back on the top most square on it:Yes it will revert back to the blank document state, that's fine just paste the already desatured file there now. As you can see we can now easily tell that to get back to this state all that needs to be done is clicking the very first history state. That's a good thing 'cause it makes it easier to find.
Repeat the same with the swatch (use the background file for that)
This is how my photoshop is set up now, there are the eye files, swatch files and the recolorable versions of them both. (never mind that it looks like I have the sclera layer hidden for the eye texture, it obviously should be turned visible)
Now it's important that you have the iris texture layer chosen in both and everything else is above it, we'll be piling the recolored files on top of that layer. Like this:
First things first though, save the base color files and export your first eye color (if you can't think of tooltip those can always be added later in simpe or wardrobe wrangler)
After exporting you can copy and paste the already made gray files as first recolor for the eyes (and below you can also see where the colored layer went on the layers list)
and then simply start recoloring the gray files into other colors, I use Trapping's and my own color actions for that, just run action, copy and paste the file over the eye/swatch texture, save, export, choose the gray texture again and revert it to the first step in the history, run next action and rinse and repeat until you got all colors done. Or if you want you can recolor them by hand with hue/saturation, brightness/contrast, color balance etc sliders, I'm just really lazy so actions are the best way to go for me to go. (below you can see bit of how my layers are looking after about 35 colors. I don't ever merge the layers so that I can save the file as psd for possible later use after I'm done)
Extra tip: If it feels like your base gray is too dark try running Trapping's action 2 or 3 over it, that will lighten it. If your problem is the opposite, it's too light then try running action 4 or 5.
And that's it pretty much. Anything written here can also be used to edit existing eyes, you'll just need to extract their textures first for using. If there's anything more anybody would like me to cover lemme know and I'll try to update this as soon as possible :3
