I’ve always wanted to attempt a realistic human iris in After Effects and last week I got my chance. In this walkthrough video I discuss how I created an iris using Turbulent Noise and other default After Effects effects. Update: Setting The Circle Effect “Edge” to “Thickness” and increasing the “Feather Inner Edge” negates the need for the duplicate Circle effects to create rings.
Realistic Human Iris
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Really nice looking result, John. Quick question… was there a reason for using two copies of the “Circle” effect to create a ring, instead of just one with the “Edge” parameter set to “Thickness”?
Nice one Robert. I hadn’t used that feature before but setting The Circle Effect “Edge” to “Thickness” and increasing the “Feather Inner Edge” negates the need for the duplicate Circle effect. Thanks for the tip.
My pleasure! I love experimenting with different aspects of effects to see what objects and textures I can create. Sometimes the simplest effects can do amazing things. Just as you’ve shown with this eye. Truly inspiring.
Wow, great job. Such a beautiful result. It was very interesting to see your creative process. I have always struggled with not having enough small detail in my work. I’m looking forward to implementing some of the techniques that you demonstrated. Thank you.
Thanks William, there’s a lot of trial and error and you get better with practice. The trick is knowing when to stop!
Nice stuff! Turbulent Noise (and Fractal noise) have got to be some the most powerful effects inside of AE.
I agree Mark, they are such versatile and useful effects.
Awesome work, John!. This a really good human iris! Thank you for share this.
Thanks Mario. If you’d like an Avatar you can set it up at www.gravatar.com.
Hey JD,
You have a great eye for compositing 😉
Thanks for sharing – When can we see the final animation?
I’ll being a new set of mini breakdowns soon and will include the final look, it’s pretty simple.
I work on a similar project for experimental video for a luxury brand’s explanation was a great help to me.
big thanks !!!
Excellent, simply marvelous.
superb result.. very nice and great tutorial, very interesting!
Thank you for sharing your process. I like your calm and simple way of explaining details.
Sometimes it’s easy to get frustrated and lose hope whilst in the creative process, especially with a tight deadline.
It’s helpful of you to share details like how long it took as well.
Cheerz John!
Thanks for the feedback Dane, we all get frustrated at some point!
Best, John.
The bulge layer should be under the spec highlight. The spec is on the surface of the eye and the pupil and iris are below. The pupil dilation would not effect the surface of the eye. Otherwise, very nice work.
Good point.
Thanks mate! Piggybacked on your technique and made love to it. Have a look: http://beautifullydesigned.world/design/
the first image in the portfolio. I am going to create an animation and backlink to this page as a reference for original R+D. Thank you!
Good stuff Serjan!
Could we have your project file John?
Sorry Burt I don’t have access to that file any more.