Bioware NWN Model Viewer (2002) + original ASCII models

Prior to NWN going gold, Bioware released a standalone Model viewer and sample model files for creatures and spell effects.  This allowed folks to test whether NWN would run on their system and get a taste of the graphics.  

 

While they aren't of much use to players, twenty-odd years later they provide a valuable resource for forensic investigations into the Bioware model format, including emitters.  These files were released in the ASCII format by Bioware, produced by their internal Max exporter and NOT decompiled from binary by a community-created tool.  They're some of the few examples of the native Bioware ASCII model format and may contain unexpected insight.

 

After unzipping to a directory, run NWNMdlView.exe.  NWNMV_ReadMe.txt has more information on commands and usage.  Several sample models were packaged along with the model viewer and those are present in the directory with NWNMdlView.exe.  Each of the additional spell effects and creatures were released separately, in individual packs, and those have all been extracted into the appropriate folders for their classification.  In order to view them, simply copy their contents to the main directory with NWNMdlView.exe.

 

 

The individual files can be downlaoded from this Archive.org link.  Special thanks to Jasperre for reminding me to package and upload these!