How do you get an eye shine/sparkle

gsil247

Pretty much the title. I've seen promo stuff having a nice shine to the eye and I can't seem to figure out how. Is there a product I have to buy or something else? Anything you can share would be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. 

Richard Haseltine

Careful placement of lights, generally local lights (spots or points, though in Iray they may be given a non-point shape in the Parameters pane - for example, rectangular lights place so you can see the relfections in the eye can stand for windows). Of course some sets have reflections painted on the eye (usually on the transparent overlay rather than the actual cornea and iris).

Odaa

It's a matter of positioning the characters and the lights so that their eyes catch the light. I know there's a couple of lighting products to help, one of them is by Forbidden Whispers but I can't think of the product name.

Seven193

As mentioned, a point light will create a circular reflection on the eyeball.  Just place it in the direction where they're looking.

Also, if you're using a HDRI map, a bright sun or white clouds will reflect on the eyeball, but they probably won't be as sharp as a point light.

And as mentioned, you can also fake a reflection by painting it on the eyeball.  I guess that would be useful if you always want a reflection, regardless of what your character is looking at.

plasma_ring

Some figures, like Dolb, come with eye reflection textures. 

Ruphuss

postwork ?

chevybabe25

 There are 10 lights just for eye reflections that are parented to the head in this set I made for the PC.

https://www.daz3d.com/perfect-portrait-lights

chris-2599934

There are several ways of generating a catch light:

The old school way, which you'll see in lots of V4/M4/Genesis 1 & 2 figures, is to simply include it in the texture of the eye surfaces. Some figures have a selection of eye reflections to choose from.

Once iray came along, eye reflection textures seem to have become less common. Instead, if you want to produce this effect in-render, you need to place a light near the camera and pointing at the character's eyes. It can be a tricky thing to get right, but there's a product called Reflection Designer that makes it easier.

A third way is to do it in post work. I've started to do this a lot more in my own work, as it's so much quicker and easier than doing it "properly." Here's my method: In Photoshop or similar, create a layer over the finished image and use it to paint in the catchlights using a round brush with soft edges. Zoom in close to the eye so you can position the highlight in the same position on both eyes, be warned that the result at this stage will look really crude and unrealistic. Then reduce the opacity of the highlight layer until it looks right.