Import and manage 3D models from Chaos Cosmos Browser in SketchUp. This article explains asset settings, lighting, materials, variants and updates.
Parameters
Downloaded Cosmos assets appear in the Asset Editor under Geometry. Look for the Cosmos icon. You can rename, delete, replace, move and merge these assets.
The status icon shows whether the paths to the asset's textures and other external reference files are valid. Hover over the icon for details.
Use Mtl Override controls whether the global Material Override option in Render Settings affects the asset. When enabled, Material Override overrides the asset. When disabled, the asset in the referenced scene is unaffected.
Viewport Preview controls how Chaos Cosmos assets appear in the viewport.
High displays the original mesh in the viewport. Heavy meshes and scenes may take longer to display and slow down SketchUp significantly. The display time depends on the poly-count, and the preview is detailed.
Medium
Low
Bounding Box displays previews as bounding boxes.
Point (Origin) previews the mesh using its own point of origin.
Merge
Merging is irreversible. Merge converts the Chaos Cosmos asset to a standard proxy mesh with material assignments and adds its materials and lights to the scene. You can then edit the asset's materials or IES Light parameters. See the Proxy Mesh page for details.
Lights
Find all light sources, including IES lights, in the Lighting section of the Chaos Cosmos browser.
Lights enables the Cosmos Light asset.
Intensity Multiplier multiplies the intensity of all instances of the Cosmos asset.
Color Multiplier multiplies the colour of all instances of the Cosmos asset. See the V-Ray Asset Editor page for details about the colour swatch.
Luminaires Enabled controls the light source used when rendering. When enabled, Luminaires included in the asset emit light. When disabled, the original light source is used.
Material Overrides
The Material Overrides section lists all materials in Chaos Cosmos 3D Assets. You can replace these materials without merging the asset.
Left-click an Embedded material to open a dropdown list of materials in the scene. Select a material to override the current one.
Variants
Asset Variants are Cosmos assets with more than one variation in materials and geometry. Each variation parameter has a fixed label taken directly from the Cosmos asset. Some variant choices show additional options called sub-variants.
Selecting a variant from the dropdown updates the Cosmos asset in the viewport, render output and asset preview. Switching variants resets all values in the Lights and Material Overrides sections to their defaults.
Updates
When a newer version of a Cosmos asset is available on the server, an "update" button appears in the Asset Editor. Select the update button to start the update.
Updating can change the object's appearance and the rendered result.
A Download button appears if the asset files are missing.
Download progress appears next to the button.
A Refresh button appears when a Cosmos Asset was imported with an older V-Ray version. Select it once to update the UI and make newer features available, including Material Overrides and Variants.
3D Models Presets
The 3D Models category includes Presets that work with Chaos Scatter.
Find Scatter presets in Cosmos > 3D Models > Presets. There are two types: Surfaces and Splines.
No Selection lets you import Surface and Spline presets without selecting a host object. The Scatter assets appear in a grid in the viewport and are added to the scene without a dummy host. They also appear in the Asset Editor and SketchUp Components tray. You can manually apply them to a host later.
With Selection automatically applies the imported preset to the selected host object if it is valid.
Multi-Selection Support lets you select multiple host objects. The preset applies to all compatible items.
Example: Surfaces
Example: Splines
3D Models Ready Sets
The Ready Sets category contains sets of multiple 3D Assets. Find them in Cosmos > 3D Models > Ready Sets.
Ready Sets import as a Component in SketchUp. Each asset in the set also imports separately as a component. Explode the set to move each asset separately. All assets in the set appear under a tag with the set's name in the Asset Editor.
Parallax Interiors
Import Parallax interiors from 3D Models > Parallax Interiors.
Find Parallax Interior assets in the 3D models category. They import as native plane geometry with a self-illuminated material. A Parallax texture creates the illusion of an interior with depth on the plane's surface.
Example: Self-Illumination
This example shows how changing the Self-Illumination intensity affects the scene's lighting.