Viewmodel

The shotgun in the picture is a typical viewmodel.

A viewmodel is a model, typically a weapon, which is held in the players hands and can only be seen from the first person view. As it doesn't interfere with the rest of the game world, you can think of it as an overlay on the player's screen. In multiplayer, both the player model and the world model are rendered on players' screens for them to see.

Characteristics of viewmodels

The same model seen from another angle

• A viewmodel is usually very detailed and uses high resolution textures.
• Backfaces of the model that the player isn't going to see are often deleted to increase the performance a little bit.
• Viewmodels have neither physical properties (like $surfaceprop) nor a $collisionmodel.
• Usually named with a v_ prefix, whereas its world model starts with w_ - example: v_shotgun.mdl and w_shotgun.mdl

See also

• Creating Viewmodels
• Creating Worldmodels