Chaos Cosmos Browser

This page provides information about the Chaos Cosmos Browser integration in V-Ray for Blender.

Overview

Chaos Cosmos Content System delivers an asset library of high-quality, render-ready 3D content carefully selected from the rich Chaos ecosystem. It allows Chaos users from their respective Chaos products to browse, place, and render 3D assets in their visualization projects. The asset categories span across vegetation, materials, furniture, accessories, lighting fixtures, vehicles, people, animals, architecture, presets (i.e. ready-to-use predefined sets of 3D models like grass and dandelion lawns, tree avenues, river bed, wild bushes, palm forest, hedges, group of people and more), enmesh-patterns and HDRI skies, organized in four main categories and nine spaces.

In addition, all assets go through a rigorous process of selection and Chaos quality checks to make sure that they work seamlessly in different Chaos renderers (V-Ray 5 and later, V-Ray GPU, Corona, Vision, as well as Chaos Vantage) and host apps (3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Revit, Rhino, SketchUp, Maya, Houdini, etc).

Find out more about Chaos Cosmos by following the link.

UI Path: ||V-Ray|| > Chaos Cosmos > Cosmos Browser

Installation

Chaos Cosmos Browser is part of the installations of all Chaos renderers - V-Ray, Corona, and Vantage - and does not require any other specific actions. You can access the downloadable content of the Chaos Cosmos Platform from within the host platform once the renderer's installation is complete.

Usage

To start using the Chaos Cosmos Browser, you have to first sign in. Press the Sign in button at the top-right corner and enter your Chaos credentials in the opened browser tab.

Then, you can use the buttons at the top or use the Search tab to find assets.

You can additionally choose between different Categories. The option to Show downloaded only is also available.

The filters help you refine your search by date, popularity, color, and space.

Download

When you choose an asset, you have to download it first. Hover over it and click on the blue icon at the lower-right corner. Another way to download an asset is to click on it. This reveals additional information. You can see the category/space/color of the asset and other relevant additional information.

Import

Once the download is complete, a window appears confirming that the asset has been downloaded successfully. The Import button places the asset at 0,0,0 of the coordinate system. Dragging and dropping the asset into the scene is not supported yet.

Note that assets can be reused across different host platforms. They are saved locally in the following directory: C:\Users\[User]\Documents\Chaos Cosmos\Packages.

The download storage can be configured. For more information on how to do it, refer to the Configuring the Asset Download Directory page.

Lights

Cosmos lights are imported as V-Ray Proxy objects. The proxy holds the geometry of the Cosmos asset and is a parent to the respective V-Ray Light. This means that moving or rotating the geometry, keeps its V-Ray Light together with it.

HDRIs

HDRI assets create a Dome Light with a Bitmap texture attached to it. Dome Lights overexpose a scene if not viewed from a V-Ray Camera. When importing an HDRI from the Cosmos Browser, it is recommended to use a V-Ray Camera to achieve the correct exposure.

Materials

The Import button adds the material into the scene and is available for selection in the Material Manager. Press the green arrow for additional import options:

Use triplanar mapping – Enables triplanar mapping (when adding the material to scene or selection).

Download Missing Assets

Misplaced assets can be downloaded using the Download Cosmos Assets tool.

Notes

• Scenes with Chaos Cosmos assets can be rendered in Chaos Cloud.
• Scenes with Chaos Cosmos assets can be exported as .vrscene files.
• Chaos Cosmos assets that contain light sources can be used with Light Mix.
• At render time, Chaos Cosmos objects work as V-Ray proxies. For more information, refer to the Proxy page.
• Chaos Cosmos assets are always in centimeters.
• If a warning appears when opening the Cosmos browser, follow its message to reset it.