FTEQW Model Viewer Documentation

The FTE Model Viewer

There is an in-engine model viewer, it can display any type of model that's supported. This is useful for modellers and animators for debugging purposes. For a list of all possible model formats, see FTEQW File Formats

Displaying a model

If FTEQW is windowed, you can drag and drop a file onto the program window to display it. You can also do it with a console command:
MODELVIEWER PROGS/FILENAME.EXT

Hud Info

Bug: The 'm' key sets one of 7 modes, but the mode you're currently in isn't displayed on the HUD.

Surf 0: surfName
The selected surface. A polygon object in the model is known as a surface.

Skin0: "", Material "materialName"
The selected skin texture. This will be the name of the material that was assigned to the object in your 3d editor. FTE will look for this skin in the same folder that your model is in. If you want it in a different folder, then the material should be named with a path like this:
models/textures/materialName

Note: some 3d apps won't allow you to put a '/' in the name of your material. You can rename it in a text editor after exporting as an ASCII file format. The FTE IQM-TOOL also has a rename command which can be used for this.

frame0: animName (n poses, n of n secs, Looped/Unlooped)
The selected animation sequence. Even though the hud says frame, it really means FRAMEGROUP. A framegroup can contain a single frame, or multiple frames. A frame in a framegroup is known as a POSE. If a framegroup contains multiple poses then it will be seen automatically as an animation sequence. The original id1 models use framegroups consisting of 1 pose each. They didn't utilize framegroups correctly at all. That's why their animations can't be played back in the modelviewer, you can only view them as individual poses.

Bug: There is no way to stop the playback of a looping anim so that you can examine it slowly frame by frame.

Mins: -n -n -n
The Mins of the bbox?

Maxs: n n n
The Maxs of the bbox?

flags:0 0x1400
The bitflags on the model for things like particle trails

Camera Controls

Bug: There are no controls to pan the camera, this prevents looking at a specific part of a model when its zoomed in. It's difficult to see the joints in skeletal models because of this.

Function	Key Assignment
zoom in	w
zoom out	s
tilt up	up arrow, keypad up arrow, Dpad-up (gamepad)
tilt down	dn arrow, keypad dn arrow, Dpad-down (gamepad)
rotate left	left arrow, keypad left arrow, Dpad-left (gamepad)
rotate right	right arrow, keypad right arrow, Dpad-right (gamepad)

Selection Commands

Bug: When there's a lot of joints in the skeleton, the list of joints will overflow off the bottom of the screen, and using the [ and ] keys will not scroll the list.

Function	Key Assignment	Usage
next surface	ins	highlites a surf
prev surface	del	highlites a surf
next skin	home	shows a skin
prev skin	end	shows a skin
next frame	pgup	shows another anim or frame
prev frame	pgdn	shows another anim or frame
next joint	]	highlites a joint
prev joint	[	highlites a joint

Misc Commands

Function	Key Assignment	Usage
mode	m	there are 7 modes: none, bones, shader, texture, collision, events, normals. Keep pressing 'm' to cycle through them.
texture map	t	there are 10 types of map: diffuse, normal, specular, upper, lower, paletted, fullbright, reflectcube, reflectmask, displacement. Keep pressing 't' to cycle through them.
reset times	r	this seems to restart the animation
flop ragdoll	f	I think it pushes a ragdoll so you can see how it looks?
unknown command1	a	doesn't seem to do anything
unknown command2	d	doesn't seem to do anything
unknown command3	space	something related to a shader file?
unknown command4	keydown[K_MOUSE1] && mods->mousedown	doesn't seem to do anything

Troubleshooting Your Model

If you're adding new model and texture files to your game folders while FTE is running, you might need to clear the cache for them to be found. If FTE can't find the model, it won't be loaded. If FTE can't find the skin texture, the model will have a pink and black color.

Solution for files that aren't found

1. Keep FTE running, but exit the model viewer by pressing ESC
2. Open the console and use ALL of these commands:

• flush
  
• fs_flush
  
• vid_reload
  
• vid_restart
  

3. Now try loading the model into modelviewer again.

You might want to bind that command to a key:
bind f "flush;fs_flush;vid_reload;vid_restart"

Now you can simply press F to fix things quickly.

Help, my model is still pink!

If your model is still pink after flushing and reloading, it means either your material name is wrong, or the material isn't in the correct folder.

In modelviewer's hud, the material might show a path, like this:
Skin0: "", Material "foo/myMaterial"
that means it's looking in your gamedir/foo folder for a texture named myMaterial

Or it might show with no path, like this:
Skin0: "", Material "myMaterial"
that means it's looking in the same folder as the model

If you press 't' you can see all locations where FTE is looking to find the skin texture. The folders its searching will be listed like this:
progs:models

meaning, its trying to find the texture in either the progs or models folder.