Hi all,
I’ve just released PM Easy Eyes, a Blender add-on I’ve been working on for creating, customising and animating stylised character eyes.
It started because I was getting tired of rebuilding variations of the same 2D eye shaders and controls whenever I made a new character. The original idea was simply to make that process quicker.
Then I got a bit carried away…
PM Easy Eyes now lets you add a complete eye rig and retarget it to your own eye meshes, with most of the day-to-day customisation available directly from the N-panel.
Some of the features include:
- Quick setup and retargeting to existing eye meshes
- Multiple pupil and iris styles
- Custom pupil, iris, sclera and eyelid colours
- Pupil and iris size controls
- Straight and curved eyelids
- Eyelid shadows and edge lines
- Multiple catchlight options
- Bloodshot effect
- Tears with adjustable height and colour
- Emission options
- Optional 3D shading for the eyeballs, eyelids and tears
- Pupil turning for spherical eyes
- Gaze, upper/lower eyelid and catchlight animation controls
- Eye spacing, vertical offset, scale and other rig adjustments
- Separate controls for the left and right eyes where appropriate
Although I originally built it for 2D-style eyes on 3D characters, during development I discovered that the same system works surprisingly well on fully spherical 3D eyeballs too. The 3D effects are optional, so it can range from completely flat/cartoon-looking eyes to something with much more depth.
I’ve tried to keep the underlying shaders accessible as well, so you’re not limited to the controls I’ve exposed in the N-panel if you want to dig in and modify things yourself.
PM Easy Eyes is currently available at a launch price of £8.
I’ve also put together a full user guide and video guides covering setup and the shader system.
Video showcase:
https://youtu.be/yHixPfAdoe0?si=8_0ghGT-nz6N8bD4
This is the first public release, so I’d particularly appreciate feedback from other Blender users. If you find a bug, manage to break something, have trouble using it with a particular type of character, or think there’s an obvious feature I’ve somehow missed, please let me know.
I’ve tested it on quite a few different eye shapes and character types, but I’m sure people here will find combinations I never thought to try!
Thanks for having a look.