Model Museum

Take a real good look at those polygons.

A Model Museum (frequently called a model viewer in-game) refers to a dedicated mode or area in a Video Game that allows you to freely examine models used throughout the game. Often, you can watch models perform animations, or just study the artistry behind them. More recent model viewers may also come with a Photo Mode if the game allows you to customize models to your liking for screenshots. If you really look, you might even catch some Model Dissonance depending on how careful the developers were.

Usually, these are not immediately available to the player; they may be unlocked as some kind of completion reward, you might have to scrape up enough collectibles as part of a Collection Sidequest, you might need to own a certain item in the game, or maybe you need to know some cheat code. On the other hand, some games have their Model Museums freely accessible, especially when a team of developers want to flex the work they put into the experience. Model Museums can also provide some additional information about a model depending on the case.

Note that in order to qualify as an example, the Model Museum must be a dedicated mode or area in a Video Game for viewing models. More specifically, the presence of a model cannot in any way be incidental, such as in the case of a character selection menu or a bestiary. Examples of models being included in a case where the game is specifically showcasing cut or unused content would be more appropriately put under Concept Art Gallery. Note that free camera movement around models is not a requirement, but it is very common.

See also Monster Compendium, which is a Mook database that lists stats and biographies for in-game enemies. Can result in All There in the Script if there's information only shown in the Model Museum like a character's name or backstory. Could result in Video Game Perversity Potential for similar if not identical reasons to Photo Mode. Compare and contrast the aforementioned Concept Art Gallery. Can overlap with Museum Level depending on the implementation.

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Examples:

Action RPG

• Brave Fencer Musashi lets you purchase Action Figures that can be viewed in this way, encompassing a large amount of the cast. You can freely examine their models, watch animations, and read some descriptions of each figure.
• Genshin Impact: The "Living Beings" Archive is a Monster Compendium that lists every single enemy, boss, and non-hostile wildlife that you encounter in the game. It comes with a built-in model viewing feature that allows you to check out their models and view them in finer detail without having to engage them in the overworld, provided that you already fought the enemies or hunted the wild animals once before.
• Kingdom Hearts: Many of the games include Jiminy's Journal where, on top of story recaps and collectible lists, there are character bios that allow the player to view full turnaround models of the various enemies, allies, and side characters.

Adventure Game

• Detroit: Become Human has a model gallery in the Extras menu. Bonus points, earned by completing different paths in the story, can be used to unlock the character models featured in the gallery, provided that you've also found them in-game.

Fighting Game

• Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2 added the Digital Figure mode in an update, which lets you place any characters you like in a scene and freely examine their models. You can even pose them and set up scenarios, as the mode doubles as an extensive Photo Mode! The mode later returned in Guilty Gear -STRIVE- too.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us: The Archives allow you to freely view static models of all the characters you have available, with all their skins viewable on top of that. Each character comes with some additional description, and you can use this feature to re-watch their endings provided you previously viewed them.
• KOF: Maximum Impact has the exceptionally thorough Profile Mode that allows you to view the models of every fighter in the game alongside all of their alternative costumes (provided you've unlocked them), with free-look functions available. On top of this, each model comes with the character's backstory and biography, voice lines, and the ability to view their alternative "Rigging Models" as well.
• Saint Seiya: The Hades on PS2 has a rather clunky model viewer. Each model is unlocked after beating the Arcade Mode with the relevant character.
• Super Smash Bros.: Melee, Brawl, and 3DS/Wii U all feature the diverse Trophy system. Each Trophy can be viewed freely alongside a description of what the trophy is and where it originates from, with each game having hundreds of trophies to hunt down from all across Nintendo's history, as well of those of third party publishers from Brawl onwards.
• Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The Gallery has the Model Viewer which allows you to examine fighter models from just about any angle and zoom, along with all of their palette swaps.
• WWF Attitude for the N64 and PS1 had a Character Viewer for the (rather limited) roster. It displayed some factoids on each wrestler in the game, played their theme music, and showed the wrestler's in-game model, which could be rotated around. Amusingly, if you kept rotating the character viewer, the character would eventually get motion sick and start swaying back and forth.

First-Person Shooter

• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 features a literal museum for this purpose. It's initially shown in the end credits and afterwards becomes a playable level, showing off a selection of characters and vehicles in dioramas representing the game's various locations. Approaching the character dioramas makes them play out a short animated routine. Just don't press the red button at the front desk.
• Doom (2016) lets you view models for a variety of monsters and characters provided you're willing to hunt down their figurines across the game.
• Doom Eternal features the Collectible Viewer, a similar mechanic to its predecessor that behaves in roughly the same way; you collect figurines as part of secrets and can freely view them and their animations.
• Memoirs of Magic has something of the sort with the Marble Museum. Turning in Marble and Gold Statues will gradually reveal a variety of character sprites and boss models used throughout the game — and you can view every character in both light and dark conditions, which is the only means of seeing various characters in the dark.
• Metro: Last Light: The appropriately-named "Museum" Downloadable Content pack features an entire level dedicated to this trope, with half of the map in question allowing you to view the in-game character models of each character, major NPC, and enemy, human or mutant.
• Quake III: Arena and its Spiritual Successor OpenArena allow players to check their selected character in the character selection screen as well as the Controls menu, where they can see how their character react to the different commands.
• Unreal Tournament has one accessible through the player setup in the Options menu. It allows alternating the full body and the face/torso of the selected character.
• Unreal Tournament 2004 allows players to check the full body, alternating it with the character's portrait.

Metroidvania

• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night: Enemies and bosses that are defeated in the game have their entry in the bestiary unlocked that not only allows the player to read information about each monster but also allows their model to be viewed as well.
• The Metroid Prime Trilogy has the second game upgrade the Enemy Scan feature with fully rendered models of every enemy, boss, and interactive object in the game, allowing one to examine these subjects in clear detail when not actively fighting. Initially this only applied for that game, but the first game's Remastered release on Nintendo Switch came with a Character Gallery feature, unlocking figurines of not only almost every creature and boss in the game, but even Samus' suits and Morph Ball variants.

Party Game

• Mario Party: Star Rush: The Character Museum allows players to view models of any characters they've seen throughout the game. The player can show some of their animations by pressing the X button, and unlock stamps for any characters that they have access to amiibo figures of.

Platform Game

• Dewy's Adventure has the Character Viewer that lets you rotate and zoom in on models of various characters throughout the game, with more characters unlocking in the viewer as you make more progress. Every model is animated and comes with a line or two of descriptive text.
• Jak 3: Wastelander has one available that can be purchased with Precursor Orbs, with models from Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and Jak II: Renegade available for viewing as well. The model viewer lets players watch animations of various characters from the cast with a bunch of silly dialogue that occasionally breaks the fourth wall.
• Kirby and the Forgotten Land: Kirby can collect figure capsules from stages and the capsule machines in Waddle Dee Town that you can view individually to your heart's content with a big ol' smiling Kirby in the background. Unlike most examples, not all of the figure capsules are one-to-one with the models. Particle effects are replaced with plastic, and floating/flying creatures and items are frequently given a stand to preserve the sense that the capsule figurines are physical items, not just ripped models.
• Klonoa: Door to Phantomile: The Wii remake has an unlockable Character Viewer that lets you see the character models and rotate them around. However, the latter function is disabled for the Final Boss's second form (a floating face), so you can only see it from the front as you do in gameplay.
• Sonic Generations: The character models for various members of the cast can to be viewed in the Collection Room, with a short bio describing each character.
• Stretch Panic: One of the rooms in the Museum Of Agony is the Gallery Of Shame. It allows you to view the models of the bosses, and even play around with them.

Racing Game

• DiRT 5 allows you to hide the UI when selecting a vehicle, enabling you to freely rotate the camera around your car. For some models, you can press a button to open your car's doors and hood and admire their interiors and engines - things you don't usually see while driving.
• F-Zero GX allows you to admire the machine of every racer you have bought in the in-game store.
• As if the Forza franchise's gratuitous Car Porn wasn't explicit enough, many games in the franchise allow you to admire any machine you own in your garage, allowing you to open doors, turn on the headlights, look under the hood and more.
• Gravel allows you to hide the interface in vehicle selection, letting you zoom in and out on your car and freely rotate the camera around it... except to look at the bottom of the car, which would reveal a featureless plane.
• Motor Storm Pacific Rift: The Vehicle Viewer in the Garage allows you to admire your chosen vehicle and livery in a tame environment. You can freely rotate the camera around them, zoom in and out to study their details, rev their engines, and view your driver's taunt animation (with a beep of the horn, where applicable).
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 (at least for the PS2) lets you hit a button when selecting a vehicle, which will activate the camera so you can look around the vehicle; a short description from a narrator will also play, describing some of the vehicle's aspects.
• Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed: When opening the garage or dealership menu you can interact with a car and admire its details, such as opening its trunk, bonnet, doors (alongside viewing its interior), as well as folding the roofs of convertibles.

Real-Time Strategy

• Wargame: European Escalation and its sequels have a viewing feature where the player can see vehicles, aircraft, and infantry squads in a hangar-like environment. Notably, it's the only time fixed-wing aircraft are shown with landing gear deployed, which is never seen in-game.

Rhythm Game

• Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F has the Photo Studio that allows you to examine and pose Miku's model in all manners of ways with free camera functions. However, putting the camera at any angle that would allow you to look up Miku's skirt will cause the model to disappear with an error message, as seen in the infamous Giant Bomb Quick Look.
• Hi-Fi RUSH: One post-game benefit is being able to purchase and view character and enemy models to view. It also doubles as a Monster Compendium, as every model has a description of its lore background.

Role-Playing Game

• The Fire Emblem games on Nintendo 3DS allow you to tap on the face portrait of any unit, ally or enemy, to see their model at any time during gameplay. They'll do a few attack animations, followed by their victory pose. You can move the camera around a bit and zoom in, but you cannot rotate it.
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening also included a proper model viewer, unlocked after beating the game, which also doubled as a Sound Test. You can view character models with more camera controls, see more animations, and even view almost all of the game's 3D environments. However, you can only view the models of the protagonists, and you can only see each of them in their base class and wielding the weapon they started out with.
  • Fire Emblem Fates allowed you to view the models of your characters inside the accessory shop, which does reflect their current class and whatever accessories they have equipped. You could only view a single animation, which consists of the character doing a twirl and then posing with their hands on their hips, but you had a vastly greater degree of camera control. In fact, the camera control was so great that spending any amount of time messing around with the model viewer in this game allowed you to easily see that many character models in this game aren't quite... finished.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has the Nintendo Gallery where you can view models of characters from throughout the game provided you've taken photos of them, or purchased a select few photos from Lenzo. Do be warned that some monsters and characters are Permanently Missable Content tied to the story, so get those pictures while you can!
• Miitopia has the Encyclopedia which lets the player, among other things, admire the models and animations of all the enemies they have previously encountered.
• Paper Mario: The Origami King: The Monster Compendium at the museum lets you view 3D models of every origami character in the game. This extends not only to enemies and bosses, but also the folded Toads that you have to rescue. You can spin them around, zoom in and out, and play an animation.
• Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth: The Enepedia gives you a free 3D view of any enemy or boss's model in the game, provided you've encountered it before. You can press a button to have them play a specific animation.
• Persona 5 Royal: The Thieves' Den is one of these, being a bonus hideaway where you can unlock models of various set pieces, characters, and enemies to display and admire. Characters you've befriended throughout the game will even appear and have conversations about your collection, which can reveal additional information about the story and world.
• The Pokémon franchise has Pokédex 3D Pro, which allows you to view every Pokémon from throughout the series up to and including Pokémon Black 2 and White 2. Features include being able to watch each mon perform numerous animations, check their types and descriptions, sort and search through them, and even take quizzes on them.
  • The original Pokédex 3D also counts, though it's limited to the mons included in Pokémon Black and White and doesn't have as many features.
• Tales of Symphonia: One item you can collect in the game is the Figurine Book. It allows you to view the model of every kind of character in the game. There's also the Monster Book, which allows you to view the models of every monster you encounter.
• Vanguard Bandits features a model gallery where you can view all of the ATACs you've seen. You can listen to all of the game's music in this same gallery as well.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1 3D for the 3DS has a Model Viewer, wich features models from the playable charachters, important story characters and story bosses. This mode didn't return for the Definitive Edition.

Simulation Game

• Spore: The Sporepedia allows you to preview and examine any creation in the game. While most objects like buildings and vehicles can only be examined with a freely rotating camera, creatures can have numerous animations played alongside their various idle animations.

Survival Horror

• Agony (2018) has the 3D Viewer that allows you to admire a wide range of horrific and grotesque characters as you collect their corresponding statues throughout Hell.
• Bendy and the Ink Machine has a special chapter called The Archives which is unlocked after completing chapter 5. It's set in a museum-like area and contains both the 3D models of all the characters seen across all five chapters of the game, including their beta models. Some of the character models have a sign next to them that have either a brief description of the character or insight on their development.
• The Evil Within has one of these available after completing the game for the first time, showing models for just about every weapon, monster, and character in the game along with brief descriptions. The Downloadable Content campaigns add dozens of new models to the viewer, though they must be unlocked by finding hidden collectibles.
• The Last of Us Part II has a model viewer available covering a significant portion of the cast with some characters in alternative outfits. You can freely examine any of these models and watch them play simple animations.
• Five Nights At Freddys VR Help Wanted: Completing the main quests unlocks the gallery, which allows the player to view models of the various characters and even some unused models.
• Resident Evil has quite a few of these:
  • Resident Evil 2 (Remake) and Resident Evil 3 (Remake) have these. Their Model Museums have models for the characters, weapons, and monsters after completing challenges.
  • Resident Evil 4 has a display of character and enemy models that are obtained by doing well in the shooting gallery Mini-Game.
  • Resident Evil 6: Finding all of the serpent emblems in each chapter of a character's story adds a model to the collection cabinet of that character. These models can then be viewed individually in the Collections Arcade.

Stealth-Based Game

• In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, completing the Leonardo missions adds models of the inventions from each one to the Assassin HQ where they can be viewed at your leisure.
• Batman: Arkham Series: Collecting Riddler Trophies can unlock "Character Trophies", full turnaround models of characters and enemies that can be viewed from a selection from the main menu.

Third-Person Shooter

• Kid Icarus: Uprising: The Idol Viewer is a comprehensive model viewer consisting of over 400 different assets, ranging from characters and enemies to items and locations. Each model has a chunk of flavor text and can even be viewed in 3D. However, models must first be collected, either through the Idol Toss, Treasure Hunt challenges, scanning cards with the console's camera, or with the Idol Transformation power viewed in 3D. Models must be collected from the Idol Viewer before they can be viewed, however.
• Ratchet & Clank (2016) has the Insomniac Museum unlocked after beating the game for the first time; a warehouse full of models and artwork from previous games. You can even examine things more closely with your Plasma Striker, which is modified to remove most of its interface elements.
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has one as well, providing information on almost every character in the game alongside being able to examine an animated model of them on a turntable.

Wide-Open Sandbox

• L.A. Noire has a gallery for every motor vehicle in the game, with entries unlocked whenever you drive one.
• Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven also has a gallery for every motor vehicle in the game.

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