W3DView+

W3DView+ is an enhanced build of the Westwood 3D model viewer (W3DView) for Command & Conquer: Generals and Zero Hour, built on the TheSuperHackers GeneralsGameCode engine. It adds a modern dark theme, a full Qt-based material editor, camera and lighting improvements, and a ground-plane preview — on top of the original tool for inspecting .w3d meshes, hierarchies, animations, and materials.

Download

➡️ Download the latest release

Grab the W3DViewZH-<version>.zip asset from the latest release. It is a self-contained bundle — no separate install needed.

Running

1. Download and extract W3DViewZH-<version>.zip anywhere.
2. Run W3DViewZH.exe.

The zip already includes everything the viewer needs to run:

W3DViewZH.exe          the viewer
Qt5Core.dll            Qt runtime (material editor panel)
Qt5Gui.dll
Qt5Widgets.dll
mss32.dll              Miles audio
platforms/qwindows.dll Qt platform plugin (must stay in this subfolder)

Keep these files together — in particular, platforms/qwindows.dll must remain in its platforms subfolder next to the exe, or the Qt material panel will not load.

To view a model, use File → Open (or drag a .w3d file — or a whole folder of them — onto the window). Textures are resolved from the folders alongside the .w3d files.

New features

Everything below is added by W3DView+ on top of the stock tool:

Material editor (Qt panel)

• A full material editor replicating the 3ds Max W3D material UI, fed directly from the raw .w3d chunk data.
• Open several .w3d files at once, one tab per file.
• Live preview: edits to vertex materials, shaders, mappers, and Clamp U/V update the 3D preview immediately.
• Status-bar help describing mapper arguments and the UV mapping type; +/× buttons to add and remove mapper-arg lines.
• Copy/paste buttons for the material panel's settings groups.

Viewport & camera

• Reworked 3ds Max–style orbit camera; the Material Viewer preview matches the main viewport's full control set.
• Vertical camera invert defaults to on (configurable).
• Ground plane (new Ground menu, in both the main viewport and the Material Viewer): a checkered plane with a soft blob shadow under the model. It is lit by the scene, so moving the light sweeps a pool of light across it; additive/alpha glow from the model blends onto the ground. Adjustable height and reset.
• Back-face tint: render normally-culled back faces in a pickable colour so you can inspect the inside of a mesh without changing its Double-Sided flag.

Lighting

• Movable scene light in the Material Viewer preview.
• Light menu with Free Roam / Per Face placement modes.

Theme

• Full dark mode (ported from Notepad++'s NppDarkMode), following the Windows app theme by default, covering the menus, toolbars, tree, and viewport.

Building

The project uses CMake with Visual Studio 2022. The W3DView+ tool builds as the z_w3dview target (produces W3DViewZH.exe).

Windows (Visual Studio 2022)

cmake --preset win32
cmake --build build/win32 --target z_w3dview --config Release

The built viewer lands at build/win32/GeneralsMD/Release/W3DViewZH.exe, with the Qt and Miles runtime DLLs copied alongside it automatically.

The Qt material panel requires Qt5 (Core/Gui/Widgets). It is provided through the vcpkg manifest (vcpkg.json); the first configure resolves it. Without Qt, the viewer still builds and runs, but the material-editor panel is replaced by a placeholder.

For the full engine and the other build guides (VS6, CLion, Docker/Linux), see the upstream TheSuperHackers Wiki.

Credits & License

W3DView+ is a fork of TheSuperHackers GeneralsGameCode, which is itself based on the source code released by Electronic Arts. The dark mode is a trimmed port of Notepad++'s NppDarkMode.

EA has not endorsed and does not support this product. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

This project is licensed under the GPL-3.0 License. See LICENSE.md for details.