View MDL files in your browser
The model of Quake, Half-Life and Valve's Source games, like Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and Garry's Mod. Open one right here in 3D with its own textures. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your model opens in 3D with its own textures, its parts beside it and its animations on the player under it.
- Turn, zoom and move it • Double click to center on a point
- Every part in a list • Hide one or see it alone
- Its animations • Play, pause and scrub each take
- Export • PNG, GLB, USDZ, STL and OBJ
About MDL
Three formats share the name. Quake's MDL of 1996 keeps a mesh whose vertices move frame by frame, its skins inside it. Half-Life's studio model of 1998 moves by bones, its textures inside it or in a T.mdl beside it. Source's, from Half-Life 2 on, splits a model into the MDL, its VVD of vertices and its VTX of triangles.
A Source model names its materials, VMT files whose $basetexture is a VTF texture, and the game finds them in its folders or its VPK archives. Its bodies, skins and levels of detail are in the MDL, and its animations in it or in the other MDLs it includes.
Filepeek tells the three apart by their first bytes, a molecule's MDL file still opens as a molecule, Warcraft III's text MDL opens as its model, and a Simulink model as its block diagram. Quake's animations play on the player. A Half-Life model shows in its first pose with its textures, and a Source model at its finest detail with the VTFs its VMTs name, from the files or the VPK dropped with it, a part whose texture isn't there in gray.
Source, Half-Life or Quake model
.mdl
Format
- MIME type
- application/octet-stream
- Made by
- id Software and Valve
Inside the file
- Quake
- IDPO • frames, skins inside
- Half-Life
- IDST 10 • bones, textures inside
- Source
- IDST 44 to 49 • with its VVD and VTX
- Textures
- Source's in VMT and VTF files
Opens in every browser
Filepeek opens an MDL in 3D in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. On their own, browsers only download it.
- YouChromeOpens through Filepeek
- YouEdgeOpens through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxOpens through Filepeek
- YouSafariOpens through Filepeek
Apps that open MDL
- WindowsHalf-Life Model Viewer • Crowbar • Noesis
- MacBlender with an add-on
- iPhone and iPadNo app opens it
- AndroidNo app opens it
Questions
Which files does a Source model need?
Its .vvd and .dx90.vtx, which keep its vertices and triangles, and for its textures the .vmt and .vtf files it names, or the VPK they're in. Drop them together with the .mdl.
Why is my Source model gray?
Its materials weren't with it. The note names the first few it looked for, so drop those VMT and VTF files, or the VPK they're in, with the model.
Does it open Warcraft III's MDL files?
Yes. Warcraft III's models written as text are .mdl files too, and open in 3D with their BLP textures and sequences, like an MDX.
Can I save it as another format?
Yes. Choose Export to save it as GLB, OBJ, STL or USDZ, or the view as PNG.
Does it open Simulink's .mdl models?
Yes. Simulink's models from before 2012, and those saved as .mdl since, open as their block diagrams, each subsystem on a page of its own, as an .slx does.