Chaos Brings USD, MaterialX and Gaussian Splats Support to Chaos Arena at SIGGRAPH 2025

Productions Can Now Bring USD Assets into Chaos Arena, Extending Chaos’ Real-Time Rendering Tech to the Entire Industry; Vantage Support Coming Soon

KARLSRUHE, Germany
August 5, 2025

At SIGGRAPH 2025, Chaos will launch new support for USD, MaterialX and Gaussian Splats within Chaos Arena, so teams can harness real-time path tracing on any virtual production. Chaos will also host Chaos Sessions, featuring in-depth talks on upcoming R&D, VFX from the box-office smash Sinners, digital human design and more.

 

These new developments continue Chaos’ goal to help teams use the same assets throughout the entire production process. By supporting open standards like USD and MaterialX, Chaos’ real-time path tracers will become instantly accessible to any artist, whether they employ V-Ray or not. Now, assets and shaders created outside the Chaos ecosystem can be brought into Arena without alterations to create rapid virtual productions. Vantage support will follow soon, opening up high-quality playblasts, previz and look dev to non-V-Ray users as well.

 

“For years, asset rebuilds have been one of the biggest headaches in previz and virtual production,” said Vlado Koylazov, head of innovation at Chaos. “Now, anyone can access a fully ray-traced workflow from pre-production to post without ever remaking their assets, which not only speeds everything up, but helps teams increase the visual quality of every production.”

 

To further aid previz and virtual production workflows, Gaussian Splats support will enable fast, photorealistic scene rendering from real-world captures. Artists can freely add or modify 3D objects to suit their creative vision, while leveraging ray-traced splats to bring more realism to a scene.

Additional new features coming to Vantage and Arena include:

 

  • OpenVDB Volume Rendering — Real-time volumes can soon be rendered directly in both products, extending their use in high-end visual effects.
  • Material Parameter Controls — Soon, materials can be refined at a more nuanced level, offering more creative freedom during the previz process.
  • Virtual Camera Set-ups — Camera tracking will also be available in Vantage, making Chaos’ real-time path tracing even more accessible to streamers, previz teams and smaller-scale virtual productions without access to an LED wall.
  • KitBash3D USD Asset Support — KitBash3D’s production ready library of over 20,000 premium 3D assets are now compatible with Vantage and Arena making it faster than ever to build complex, photorealistic worlds. Chaos recently tested this to great success in their latest Arena promo, featuring a fully textured cyberpunk club brought in with just a couple clicks utilizing the power of USD through KitBash3D’s software, Cargo.

Chaos Sessions at SIGGRAPH 2025
This free one-day event will be held in the East Building, Room 16 of the Vancouver Convention Center on August 13. Presentations run 10:00 a.m. to 5:50 p.m and are open to all SIGGRAPH attendees. However, due to some of the exclusive content being shown, recording is not permitted.

Presentation Schedule

 

Wednesday, August 13

  • Chaos “Crossing the Final Real-time Frontier: Chaos Vantage Support from USD to MtlX, to GSplats, to VDB” by Simeon Balabanov, Vantage senior product manager at Chaos, 10–10:50 a.m.
  • Zoic “Harnessing V-Ray for Houdini: Studio Techniques & Case Studies” by Rob Price, VFX supervisor and Don Haynes, DFX supervisor at Zoic,11–11:50 p.m.
  • Session Three “To be finalized,” 1–1:50 p.m.
  • Freelance “From Pixels to Presence: The Evolving Art of the Digital Human” by Ian Spriggs, 3D character artist, 2–2:50 p.m.
  • ILM “Sinners: Chaos in Mississippi” by Nick Marshall, Associate VFX supervisor and Anton Borisov, CG generalist at ILM, 3–3:50 p.m.
  • Chaos “From USD to Splats: The Next Evolution of Virtual Production with Chaos Arena” by Vlado Koylazov, head of innovation, Christopher Nichols, director of Chaos Labs and Georgi Zhekov, Chaos Arena product manager, 4–4:50 p.m.
  • Global Objects “Creating The Digital Backlot: The Full Lifecycle of Digital Set Creation” by Erick Geisler, CTO at Global Objects, 5–5:50 p.m.

To learn more about the talks, please visit the Chaos Sessions landing page.

 

Availability
USD, MaterialX, and Gaussian Splats support is available in Arena now. The same features and other new improvements will be added to Vantage 3.0 this fall. Stay tuned for beta updates soon. For private Arena demos, please contact the team.

about Chaos

Founded in 1997, Chaos provides world-class visualization and design solutions that empower creative minds to bring ideas to life.

 

The company serves multiple industries, including architecture and design, media and entertainment, and product e-commerce, providing an ecosystem of accessible tools that support every stage of the design and creation process. Its innovative solutions help architects, designers, VFX artists/animators, and other creative professionals share ideas, optimize workflows and create immersive experiences.

 

Headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, Chaos has offices in 11 cities worldwide. For more information, visit chaos.com.