Hi, I am following an eye tutorial in 2.5. They ask you to select the faces and then “Rip” (V key) then rotate the selected part (in orange) 180 °. The problem is the part I ripped is still a part of the main mesh so when I rotate it rotates everything not just the selected ( orange) part.
How do I rotate only the selected (orange) part and not the rest?
pg
Did you try to rotate the selected section in Edit Mode or Object Mode? Needs to be in Edit Mode.
Thanks for the reply. Yes I am in Edit mode. I just figured it out. R/180 thanks.
Using Blender 2.5.
Question #2 - Connecting 2 Shapes
How can I connect the faces from one object to another as in image #1 so it looks like image #2?
pg
In the 2nd pic, it looks like you’ve got the iris pretty close to the rest of the eye. In edit mode, select vertex select mode, so you see all the tiny little dots that make the eye. Select a vertex of the iris, select a vertex of the eye that is closest to the one previously selected and use alt+m, select ‘at center’ from the pop up menu. You have to do this, vertex at a time.
Alternately, you could possibly use ‘remove doubles’ and play with the threshold level, making it large enough that blender automatically joins the closest vertices. Go too large with the threshold level and it will join too many vertices.
Hope this helps
Randy
For large numbers of vertices that align very closely this is the most efficient way to go as long as you go carefully on the Threshold value as r_randy says. If you position the parts of the mesh carefully you can use a very small value to avoid unwanted joining of verts. This also results in less displacement of the joined verts.
A tip about selection – if you change the selection mode to edges and select edge loops (that option’s in the Edge Specials menu that you can bring up with the Ctrl+E-KEY in Edit Mode), that’s the same as selecting all the verts in the loop, but automated. Makes selecting groups of verts easier for large-scale welding like this.
Wow “Remove Doubles” worked great. Thanks to both of you.
pg
Oops sorry I forgot to ask this.
What if edge #2 is at an unspecified location. Let’s say it’s not exactly on the grid. When I drag object #1 it won’t snap to the edge of object #2. Is there a way I can accurately get object #1 to snap to the edge of object #2?
pg
In Edit mode, click on the little magnet icon in the header. That switches snapping from grid-based to vertex-based. If you hold Control as you drag #1, you can then make it snap to one of the vertices of #2.
Best wishes,
Matthew
Ok, thanks MCollett. 
1) Are the Objects Separate or One Piece?
I am following the Venom Labs Eye Tutorials. Have any of you followed these tutorials and can you tell me if he is working on the mesh as one object or does he separate the pieces (Cornea. Pupil and Eye) before he moves the pieces together. I can’t tell from his tutorials?
If the (Cornea. Pupil and Eye) are all one object, then how is he selecting each part individually to add materials etc. when the different parts are all together?
If someone has followed his tutorials I would really like to know how he is doing this?
pg
Hahaha…It’s hard for me to tell as well, the video quality is not very good. Well, no matter. Here’s how I would proceed:
In edit mode, enter face select mode, select a face of the eyeball, the press CRTL-L to select all faces linked to the one you just selected. If the iris gets selected (which it probably will, since you merged them) don’t worry about it. Assign the eyeball material. Then unselect all, select a face to the iris. You can try CRTL-L, but if it don’t work, then you’ll have to select all the faces manually. B-key for box select might help, but I would think pressing the B-key twice to bring up the bounding box (I think that’s what it’s called) tool would be best. You should see a round circle around your cursor, just drag that around with RMB down, and it selects all the faces inside the circle. Anyhow, select all the cornea faces, assign material to them. Repeat which ever methods work best to select the pupil.
Randy
Minor clarification: B-KEY,B-KEY = “Brush select”
Use the Alt key to deselect with this tool, and you have to Esc out of it.
Another selection tip: After selecting any one mesh element (vertex, edge or face), you can extend the selection by using Ctrl+NUMKEY+ (the plus key in the Numeric keypad), or shrink the selection using Ctrl+NUMKEY- (the minus key). In combo with Edge Loop and Edge Ring Select in the Edge Specials menu, this can be a real time saver.
Ok here’s my 2 cents worth…
Hold down Alt key while clicking on an edge (between 2 verts) to select the edge loop of verts going round the model instead of going into the Ctrl+E edge special menu. It can be a little tricky if you have a high res mesh so you’ll need to zoom in to see which edge you are selecting
Then you can do your rip (V).
Hover the mouse over the part of the mesh that you have just ripped (this is your iris part) and hit the “L” key and it will select all the verts linked to the one nearest the pointer. Alternatively you can select one vert (any one it doesn’t matter) and hit Ctrl+L to select all verts linked to that vert. These shortcuts work in most windows including the UV editor.
“M” will mirror the iris portion of the mesh. you will then be prompted (down in the window header) for a mirror axis. In this case it will be X. The best thing about doing it this way is that the normals will now be pointing in the right direction and you wont have to flip them later 
Move your iris until the edge loop you want to join with the eyeball edge loop are nearest each other. This will ensure that when you snap to verts you will get the right ones. Snaps always works to the very nearest vertex and it may not necessarily be apparent which one you are going to get unless you rotate your view.
Turn on the AutoMerge Editing feature (it’s under the ‘Mesh’ menu). Turn on your vertex snaps (magnet icon in the window header or Ctrl Tab) and move your iris mesh into position. The mesh should snap to the nearest vertex AND weld all the vertices together in one move.
AutoMerge Editing together with vertex snaps is a great time saver!
If any of this is unclear or you would like me to explain in more detail, let me know and I’ll post a quick tut.
Thanks everyone! i tried both the Automerge method and the Remove Doubles method and they both work great. One thing I am still confused about is if I should leave the objects. Sclear, Iris and Pupil all as one object or separate them § into individual objects. I am leaning toward separating them though as it’s a lot easier to apply materials to them when they are separate. What do most of you do. Is there any reason I should keep all of the pieces as one object?
Also, tomorrow I will be tackling the textures for the eye. In the 2nd, 3rd and 4th video Pablo walks through the shading of the different eye parts, but I found the video to be way too fast to keep up to and there were so many settings that my head was spinning. I am wondering if there is a simpler way to texture the eye so it still look real but has a reasonable amount of settings?
Any advice is appreciated.
pg
If you reassemble things, you may end up with some funny results if you dont do your shade smooth properly. If you do decide to reattach everything, you can select the various parts and make vertex groups for easy selection later. Alternatively you can use Shift + G which gives you some extra selection features, including one that looks at similar materials.
If you leave them unconnected it makes it simple using the “L” key to select the linked faces and isolate smoothing groups etc.
There is no one “right” way…it all depends on whether or not is causes you an issue which in this case i dont think it will. If you were going to be deforming the mesh, you might end up with tearing if you dont connect all the verts…
Ok, I’ve started to unwrap the eye. In Pablos video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtztC92oQnI&feature=PlayList&p=9CC2FBA17BC8E484&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=20 he only unwrapped the “Iris” the same part I have selected in orange. What he did was bring the image into the UV editor and sized it right on the eye. I couldn’t figure out how he did this so I just unwrapped the iris part.
I selected only the quads of the iris, then unwrapped them. I then resized/scaled up the UV in the UV Image editor window and saved the UV map. I thought this would work fine but I was wrong.
Most important Question!
What is the “Correct” way to unwrap only a few polys, like the ones I have selected (1). Did I do this wrong. Could someone please explain the best way to unwrap the eye so I can map the “Iris” to it properly? Also I scaled up the UV’s in the UV Image Editor Window (see first image) and then my UV map was huge when I mapped it to the eye. Why is this?
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/6734/eyeunwrap.jpg
Problem #2
In the Texture settings I selected UV. Now I don’t understand why I am getting these little eyes everywhere. I’ve read that if you create a UV map you need to select “UV” as your mapping coordinates. So I don’t know why I am getting these results?
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/3595/eyemappingprob.jpg
Problem #3
I the Texture settings I then tried to use “Generated” and “Flat” as my mapping type. (I still think I should be using UV as my mapping type) I then noticed the map was way too big and was larger then the original area I UV’ed. Could this be a result of me scaling up the UV’s in the UV Image Editor Window. I’ve also read you can scale up the UV’s in the UV Editor and it shouldn’t change the way the UV’s map to the Mesh? If this is the case then why is the image so large?
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/1710/eyemapgenerated.jpg
Thanks
pg
Anyone able to help me with this.
pg
When you only unwrapped the Iris portion of your mesh, you set up to apply the texture ONLY for the UV-unwrapped portions via the UV mapping type. Everything else in your model uses Orco or some other mapping option, since it hasn’t been unwrapped. When you apply a single material (the iris texture) to the entire eye, there’s no “instructions” on how to apply it to the unwrapped portion, so it used the individual faces.
You can either unwrap the entire eye, or apply two materials to the eyeball mesh – one for the Iris, and applied only to the Iris faces using UV, and one for the rest of the eyeball using whatever – probably Orco, but that depends on what your plans for that portion are in terms of textures.
If you use Generated or Flat as mapping type it’s basically projecting the texture on the mesh regardless of the UVs, hence the poor fit. The projection is designed to fit the mesh exactly at a size of 1, so if you think of the image as being sized to fit the diameter of the eyeball when seen in front ortho view, you’ll see that the iris part covers a good portion of the eyeball mesh.
Thanks chipmasque, Hi, thanks for the reply. Do you mean I need to use two separate materials for the eye or 1 material and two textures because I don’t think you can have 2 materials for one object.
So I create a material and then 2 textures. I would name 1 texture “Sclera” (the white part) and one material “Iris” (the colored part).
Select the Iris texture, then unwrap only the polys for the iris. (The polys I unwrapped above)
Also Pablo loaded the Iris image while he was working in the UV Image Editor so he selected the UV’s and could interactively see the Iris image and how it was being applied to the Eye. Do you know how this is done?
Sorry, I’m a little confused. Can you explain the steps? Does everyone do all this just to create a realistic eye or am I making it harder than it has to be?
pg
You can apply up to 16 Materials per Object. Materials are applied to sets of faces. You can apply your Iris Material, with UV mapping, to just the faces that make up the Iris. You can then apply a different Material to the rest of the eyeball (the Sclera). The boundary between Materials, like the boundary between faces, will be sharp, so you have to plan for that (outer rim of Iris should match Sclera at the boundary).
“Homework” assignment ;): Manual: Multiple Materials
If you want to use only one Material, and have it work for the Iris with UV mapping, then you have to UV-unwrap the entire eyeball and create an Image Texture that includes both the Iris and the Sclera.
No comment on what “Pablo” does, since I don’t know the tutorial. He could be assuming more knowledge on the part of the viewer than is actually the case in your case.
Thanks chipmasque. I will get on my homework.
pg