Chaos Cosmos
| | PRICE Free COMPANY Chaos WEBSITE cosmos.chaos.com
In recent years there has been an increasing trend in the 3D industry to utilise and take full advantage of off-the-shelf assets, with developers providing new tools that make it easier than ever to download and insert assets into your scenes. One of those examples is the Chaos Cosmos asset library.
In essence, Cosmos is an easy-to-use collection of smart content that spans a variety of categories including models, materials and HDRI skies. It’s worth noting that all of these assets will only work
in conjunction with V-ray, so you won’t be able to make use of this content collection if you use a different rendering package. In that regard, this is a way for Chaos Group to tie you in even further to the V-ray ecosystem.
That being said, Cosmos integrates seamlessly into a variety of software packages including 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Sketchup, Maya, Rhino, Revit and Vantage. This is one of the major benefits of Chaos; no matter what software you use you’ll likely be able to utilise Cosmos with it.
The Cosmos library is really simple to use – the standard process of downloading assets and then importing them into your scenes has been replaced by a custom-built browser which works directly inside your 3D software. This greatly speeds up the process of populating your scenes.
The browser is simple, too. As you’d expect, it includes a search feature that lets you drill down and return only the assets you’re interested in. You can further refine the results with filter settings. If you just want to browse the assets then
you can do that by selecting specific categories. These assets seem largely made up of third-party content, so you may be familiar with some of them already.
One of the areas that Cosmos really shines is in its smart capabilities, which is something that we’re coming to increasingly expect; we want the software we interact with to work no matter what device we’re using it on. An example of that would be with music, where we want to be able to play our favourite music on our phones, computers and smart speakers.
Cosmos is smart in the sense of delivering the same content across applications, but tailoring that content to suit the exact output. This is played out in the viewport and the various rendering options V-ray provides. When inserting and navigating through your viewport you’ll experience a lower level of detail, ensuring that your scenes don’t get bogged down. But as soon as you hit render, all of that beautiful high-definition detail will come back and be displayed in your final images and videos.
All models are render-ready and render consistently across all V-ray rendering options, whether that be on the CPU, GPU or even in Vision or Vantage. This is particularly helpful if you’re presenting your work in multiple different mediums. You can be sure that your assets will look the same if you’re creating high-end static visuals or delivering something more interactive.
“IF YOU’RE AN EXISTING V-RAY USER THEN MAKING USE OF COSMOS IS A BIT OF A NO-BRAINER”
If you’re not a V-ray user you’ll need to find an alternative content browser solution. On the other hand, if you’re an existing V-ray user then making use of Cosmos is a bit of a no-brainer; the assets are completely free after all. Give it a whirl and see if it fits into your workflow. As the models are V-ray Proxies you’ll need to make sure you’re familiar with how they work, otherwise things might get a little confusing. The models don’t come in as 3D models but as references to proxy files. This means you can’t directly edit them. Thankfully, Cosmos does enable you to ‘Merge’ these proxies into your scene through the Asset Editor and then fine-tune some of the settings there, such as the model’s materials.
In the future, as new assets are added to this handy library, Cosmos will no doubt become a one-stop shop for many V-ray users.
ISSUE 281 JANUARY 2022
● Delve into the stunning CG animation of Black Lotus
● We interview female artists working at top studios, including Aardman and Framestore, about their experiences
● Behind the scenes of No Time To Die’s action-packed VFX
● Downloads Free models and textures, files and more!