Help:Model Viewer

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The Half-Life Model Viewer (HLMV) is a program used to view models of the Source engine.

Setup

Graphics card settings

For ATi/AMD cards, under '3D' in Catalyst Control Center's drop down menu, uncheck "Use Application Settings" in the "AA" section and move the slider to 8x.

For Nvidia cards, open the "NVIDIA Control Panel" and navigate to "Manage 3D settings" or similar. Add a program-specific setting for hlmv.exe (file location is below): 

\Steam\steamapps\[your account name]\sourcesdk\bin\orangebox\bin\hlmv.exe

Ensure that the following settings are enabled:

  • Anti-aliasing set to "override" and on highest setting possible
  • Texture filtering quality on highest setting possible

dxsupport.cfg

The Model Viewer also pulls settings from the config file 'dxsupport.cfg'. If the graphics card settings above do not work, then this method should still force the Viewer to output with high settings.

  1. Navigate to the directory in the section above.
  2. Open up dxsupport.cfg in a text editor of your choice. If you do not have this file, create it with this content.
  3. Find your graphics card within that file. If your card was made after 2007, it will not be likely be listed, so go to the bottom and use ATI Unknown or Nvidia Unkown depending on your card.
  4. Add or modify the following lines in dxsupport.cfg - within the section for your graphics card and save it, the Viewer should now be using high settings.
"DxLevel"	"99"
"ConVar.mat_antialias"	"8"
"ConVar.mat_forceaniso"	"8"
"ConVar.mat_picmip"	"-10"
4. Only if your card wasn't listed and is an ATi/AMD card, open AMD Catalyst Control Center (CCC), and go to the drop down menu and select 'Information Center' and open the 'Graphics Hardware' tab and record your Device ID
5. Under ATI Unknown, change its lines so it looks like the following:
"name" "Any name you want here"
"VendorID"	"0x1002"
"MinDeviceID"	"[Insert Device ID from step 4 here]"
"MaxDeviceID"	"[Insert Device ID from step 4 here]"
"DxLevel"	"99"
"ConVar.mat_antialias"	"8"
"ConVar.mat_forceaniso "8"
"ConVar.mat_picmip"	"-10"
"ConVar.mat_motion_blur_enabled"	"1"
6. Only if your card is an Radeon HD5000 series or above, you may enable "Super-Sample AA" under '3D' in the drop down menu in CCC to further increase image quality when used with the above settings.
  • It is advised to revert "Super-Sample AA" back to "Multi-Sample AA" when you are done using the Viewer, as performance in games will be reduced significantly.

Models

\weapons\ folder

The three main folders of the \weapons\ folder are:

  • w_models – holds world models for the standard weapons.
  • v_models – holds view models for the standard weapons.
  • c_models – holds models for all other newer weapons (viewmodel and world model share the same model)

Note that there are some discrepancies regarding c_, v_ and w_ models. Previously, all weapons had a world model and a view model that were kept separately. All newer unlockable weapons are in one model file (c_model) so the same model is used for the player's viewpoint and what other players see.

More recently, most stock weapons have c_model equivalents inside the files however remain unused (with the exception of stock weapons that have been used with the Name or Description Tags).

Model locations

Most models have standard names but others have vague or confusing names, so some are listed below. Alternatively, all model file paths can be found by searching "items_game.txt" (\tf\scripts\items\items_game.txt) for the item's entry and checking the value of "model_player".

Weapons
Hats
Tools
The Crate, Paint Can and Name Tag models are not present in the game files, however, the textures are (need directory). Efforts to reproduce them in a model form are ongoing (link to facepunch post).
Player models
Player models are stored in the directory of \models\player. There are also additional models stored in \models\player\hwm. HWM models (or hardware morphs) are higher-poly versions of the standard models and were used in the creation of the Meet the Team series. For more information about them, see this thread on the Steam Users' Forums.

Registry

HLMV stores model positionings and settings inside the Template:W in separate keys.

Open the registry editor by going to Start > Run and typing in "regedit.exe". HLMV's directory is "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\hlmv".

Key values

Inside each key are several values, and their uses are listed below:

Value Description Type Default
aColor Ambient color (0.3 0.3 0.3 0)
bgColor Background color (0.25 0.25 0.25 0)
cclanguageid Integer 0
enablenormalmapping Normal map Integer 0
gColor Ground color (0.85 0.85 0.69 0)
lColor Light color (1 1 1 0)
lightrot Positioning of the light source (X Y Z) (0 180 0)
merge0 – merge3 Attached weapons
overlaySequence0 – overlaySequence3 ?
overlayWeight0 – overlayWeight3 ?
playsounds Toggle sounds being played Integer 1
Rot Model's rotation in the world view (X Y Z) Model dependant
sequence Animation sequence Model dependant (most commonly idle or ref)
showbackground Integer 1
showground Integer 1
showillumpos Integer 1
showshadow Integer 1
speechapiindex Integer 1
speedscale 1
thumbnailsize Integer 128
thumbnailsizeanim Integer 128
Trans Template:W of the model (X Y Z) Model dependant
viewermode Integer 0

Limitations

See also

External links

Tools

Resources

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