This page provides information about the Chaos Cosmos Browser in V-Ray for Maya.
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).
Chaos Cosmos Browser is available in Maya version 2019 and later, but we recommend using Cosmos with newer V-Ray and Maya versions.
When using Cosmos assets in distributed rendering, make sure all the machines point to the proper network directory. More information on how to manage the Cosmos assets' folders is available at Configuring the Asset Download Directory and Moving the Asset Download Directory.
The latest version of Chaos Cosmos Browser is supported on macOS 10.14 and newer; earlier versions of macOS support Chaos Cosmos Browser 2023.07.10.
||V-Ray Toolbar|| > Chaos Cosmos icon
||V-Ray Menu|| > Chaos 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.
When installing V-Ray for Maya from a .zip file, note that Chaos Cosmos is not included by default in the installation. To add it, you can separately download and install it.
Usage Workflow
To start using the Chaos Cosmos Browser, you have to sign in first. Press the Sign in button at the top-right corner and enter your Chaos credentials in the newly 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 and filters for date, popularity, color, and space. The option to show Downloaded only is also available.
The Navigation Bar, which is available on mouse hover on the browser's top frame, eases your navigation through the Chaos Cosmos pages. Note that when the page is reloaded, the navigation history is lost.
With Maya 2024 running on macOS, Chaos Cosmos opens in the default web browser.
Multiple Asset Selection
Chaos Cosmos Browser provides the option of selecting multiple assets.
Use the 
button to enable the Multi-Selection Mode. In this mode, you can select several assets to download, import, update or delete at once.
Variants
Filters all assets containing variants. Assets with variants combine different versions of the same asset into a single item in the library. There are two types of variants - material and asset variants.
Material variants provide one asset with various material setups, all downloaded together for quick and easy changes after import.
Asset variants provide different version (geometry and materials) of one asset, downloaded separately to save storage space.
Download Assets
Once you choose an asset, you have to download it. Hover over it and click on the blue icon at the lower-right corner.
Another way to download an asset is by clicking on it first. This reveals additional information. You can see the category/space/color of the asset and other additional information. The download button is also available.
Import Assets
Once the download is complete, a pop-up window states that the asset is downloaded successfully.
You can either drag-n-drop the asset into the viewport and place it wherever you want in the scene, or you can use the Import button functionality to bring the asset into the center of the scene. The drag-n-drop option is available in Windows only.
The Import button places the asset at 0,0,0 of the coordinates system.
Note that assets can be reused across different host platforms.
By default, they are saved locally in the following directories:
For Windows: C:\Users\[User]\Documents\Chaos Cosmos\Packages;
For macOS: /Users/[User]/ChaosCosmos/;
For Linux: /home/[User]/.ChaosCosmos/Packages
The download storage can be configured. For more information on how to do it, refer to the Configuring the Asset Download Directory page.
Example: Usage
This example shows a scene without and the same scene using Chaos Cosmos assets.
Assets
Note that the Cosmos geometry is imported as VRayProxy. Similar to the new Proxy node, newer Cosmos assets allow their shaders to be previewed and overridden in the Object Hierarchy of the V-Ray Proxy. Any material in the scene can be used to override the shader and allows for quick customizations of the scene. You can find the newest assets in the What's new section of the Cosmos browser. You can refer to the V-Ray Proxy page for additional information.
If you are editing a scene created on a different machine, or somehow your Cosmos assets are mislocated, you can use the Check for Missing Cosmos Assets tool in the V-Ray Tools menu.
Lights
Cosmos lights are imported as a group, paired with the VRayProxy. This helps when moving or rotating the geometry, to keep its VRayLight together with it.
Luminaire lights are also supported. The Chaos Luminaire light allows efficient rendering of entire light fixtures by loading their respective precomputed light fields from .vlw files.
For more information, see the V-Ray Luminaires: dramatically faster, more accurate rendering of complex light fixtures article from the Chaos blog.
HDRIs
The HDRI assets create a Dome Light with the hdri file attached to it.
It is recommended to use VRayPhysicalCamera when using Cosmos hdri files for lighting. Alternatively, you can lower the dome light intensity.
Variants
Assets with variants combine different versions of the same asset into a single item in the library. There are two types of variants - material and geometry variants.
Material variants provide one asset with various material setups, all downloaded together for quick and easy changes after import.
Geometry variants provide different version (geometry and materials) of one asset, downloaded separately to save storage space.
Materials
Materials can be imported in one of few ways, once downloaded:
- drag-n-drop onto an object. That assigns the material to the object.
- drag-n-drop into the Hypershade
- with the Import button. The Import button imports the material into the scene, making it visible in the Attribute Editor and the Outliner.
Press the green arrow for two additional import options.
Use triplanar mapping – Enables triplanar mapping (when adding the material to scene or selection).
When an option is enabled in this menu, a blue circle (
) indicates the custom setup is in effect for any further material imports.
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.