Setting up the basic shape

1. Create a sphere

2. Rotate the Pitch (P) 90 degrees.


3. Make the sphere editable by clicking the Make Object Editable Tool or hit "c" on your keyboard.

4. Rotate the axis Pitch back to 0 degrees, using the Object Axis Tool.

This way, the iris that we are going to make is facing you, with appropriate polygons to shape it.

5. Save as "pupil project" on your desktop

Shaping the iris

1. Select the Polygon Tool to go into the so-called Polygon Mode.

2. Zoom and rotate within the view so we can see the first three rings of polygons.

3. Select the Knife. In the Attributes Manager, change the Mode from line to loop.

4. Make a cut just outside the second polygon ring by clicking the mouse once you've dragged the yellow line into the right position.


5. Select the Live Selection Tool

6. Select the first two rings of polygons by dragging the cursor over them.

7. Drag the selected polygons towards you along the arrow on the Z-axis (it will turn yellow when the cursor is in place) a little bit or type -95m in the Z-Axis Position Box.

Renaming and setting up the shape for the cornea

1. In the Object Manager rename "Sphere" to "inside eye".

2. Create a HyperNURBS cage and drag the "inside eye"-object into it

3. Select the HyperNURBS cage and copy it by dragging it downward in the Object Manager while holding down the Control-key.

4. Double-click the new "inside eye"-object and rename it "outside eye".

5. Hide "outside eye" for now: click both small grey dots next to it until they turn red

6. Still in the Object Manager, select the "inside eye"-object

Shaping the opening for the pupil

1. Select the inside eye object. With the two rings of polygons selected, go to the main menu and choose "Shrink Selection" from the Selection-menu, or hit u and k quickly after each other on your keyboard. Only one ring of polygons will remain selected.

2. Change the Z-position to -90.

3. In the main menu, choose "Edit > Delete" to delete these polygons and make a hole.


4. In order to give some thickness to the edge of the iris like in real life, we'll extrude the eye: Select the Extrude Selected-tool and make sure "create caps" is active. We want the whole eye to have some thickness. In Offset, type "-3" and hit Apply.

5. Not all polygons are now pointing outward. Select them all (Selection > Select All) and choose Function > Reverse Normals.