How to Switch Simon's 3D Model in Cry of Fear: Wardrobe, File Swap and Mods

Switching Simon's model in Cry of Fear comes down to one question: do you want a different outfit from the ones the game already ships, or a different character altogether? The first is a menu click inside a Secret Room; the second replaces Half-Life-format model files and accepts that a game update may erase the work.

Cry of Fear runs on GoldSrc, the Half-Life 1 codebase, so its characters are .mdl files with a small skeleton, one-bone-per-vertex skinning and paletted textures. That format keeps both routes possible and makes them fragile: a model that looks right in a viewer can still fail in-game for reasons as small as a mismatched sequence list.

This tutorial takes the questions in order: which route to take, what is inside a character file, how to build a replacement that compiles, how the twelve outfits are earned, how packs such as Sick Simon and Former Simon install and uninstall, and what to check when Simon turns into a T-pose.

Route A: the Secret Room wardrobe, the only switch you can undo

If all you want is a differently dressed Simon, use the in-game wardrobe and stop there. Community walkthroughs place a Secret Room behind the first door on the left at the very start of the game, unlocked after finishing the campaign, and a second one in Chapter 6, in the bunker beside the crashed train. Both hold the same wardrobe and the pages that explain the unlock rules.

Changing outfits in five steps

1. Finish the campaign once; the Secret Room stays locked on a fresh save.
2. Load the first chapter from the menu, the quickest route back to the opening corridor.
3. Reach the first door on the left before the black silhouette walks away; if you miss it, replay the chapter.
4. Use the wardrobe, cycle through the unlocked hoodies and confirm; cutscenes change too.
5. Switch back whenever you like: the choice is stored in your save, not in the game folder.

The trade-off is scope: the wardrobe only cycles through costumes that already exist in your installation. A character the game never shipped has to come from somewhere else.

What is actually inside a Cry of Fear character file

Cry of Fear keeps its content in the cryoffear folder beside the executable. Shipped costumes are organised per outfit: one folder under cryoffear/models/costumes/, holding its own .mdl and its textures. Player models follow the Half-Life convention, and the engine loads only compiled GoldSrc MDL files. Dropping an OBJ or a GLB in that folder achieves nothing.

• Body parts and bodygroups: the mesh split into chunks the engine can hide or swap, so one skeleton wears several outfits.
• Textures: indexed BMP files with a 256-colour palette, referenced by name rather than embedded.
• Skeleton: a shallow bone hierarchy, tens of bones rather than the hundreds a modern rig carries.
• Sequences: clips such as idle, walk, run, crouch, jump and die, chosen by declared activity, not filename.
• Hitboxes and attachments: boxes bound to bones for hit detection, plus points that place weapons in the hands.
• A QC script: the plain-text recipe listing the SMD meshes, textures and sequences in the model; keep the original as your specification.

Route B: replacing the model files, and the compile chain behind it

Replacing the player model means overwriting or shadowing MDL files, so back up first. Copy the folders you intend to touch somewhere outside the game and note the game version: a Steam integrity check restores the originals and erases your work. Change one file at a time and test.

From Blender to a compiled MDL

1. Model at GoldSrc scale in Blender or Milkshape 3D, origin between the feet: one engine unit is about an inch, a player 72 units tall.
2. Skin it to the original skeleton. GoldSrc binds each vertex to a single bone, so keep edge loops at elbows and knees for clean bends.
3. Keep the budget realistic: a Half-Life-era character is typically a few hundred to about 1,500 triangles with 256x256 or 512x512 indexed textures.
4. Export SMD files, one reference mesh plus one per animation, and write a QC declaring the model name, body parts, textures and activities.
5. Compile with studiomdl from the Half-Life SDK; it reports missing bones and oversized meshes before the engine sees the file.
6. Check it in a viewer such as Jed's Half-Life Model Viewer before copying the files into the game folder.

What packs like Sick Simon and Former Simon actually change

Most Cry of Fear character mods are asset packs, not code patches: replacement MDL and texture files dropped into a costume slot the game already has. A pack that restores the unused 2009 beta Simon is a good example: old geometry repackaged for an existing model entry. Such packs age badly, since a game update that renames a folder or adds a costume can leave the model invisible, falling back to the default Simon.

• Download from the mod's own page; check whether it targets the standalone Steam release or the older Half-Life 1 build.
• Copy the files into cryoffear/... keeping the folder names the pack expects, and back up the originals first.
• Test in single-player: a model that crashes on load usually has a missing texture reference or an unfindable sequence.
• Expect the change to be local; co-op partners keep their own installation unless they install the same pack.
• To remove it, delete the replaced files and run a Steam integrity check, which restores the shipped assets.

When it breaks: matching each symptom to the failed stage

GoldSrc model swaps fail in a few repeatable ways, and each one points at a specific stage of the pipeline. Work through them in this order before rebuilding anything.

• T-pose or frozen reference pose: the engine could not find the sequence it wanted; compare your QC activity list with the original.
• Purple, flat or checkered surfaces: a QC texture path that does not match the file on disk, or a BMP that is not indexed.
• Model invisible or replaced by a huge error placeholder: a wrong folder or model name, or a file never compiled.
• Limbs stretched across the map, or a crash on load: vertices on the wrong bone, or more bones than the compiler takes.
• Shots landing nowhere in co-op: hitboxes were resized. Hit detection uses the server's copy, so keep them identical.

Where an AI-generated mesh fits, and where it does not

Generating a base mesh and finishing it by hand is a legitimate half of a Cry of Fear costume, and Open3DAI covers that half: text-to-3D and image-to-3D generation, multiview input, AI texturing, side-by-side comparison of the engines you connect, and export to GLB, glTF, OBJ, STL, PLY or 3MF, alongside 48 format converters, 12 browser tools and a REST API. What it does not do is the half GoldSrc requires: no rigging or skin weights, no retopology, no UV unwrapping, no animation, no MDL compilation, and no promise of watertight, print-ready output without clean-up. Blender, Milkshape 3D and studiomdl remain the tools that finish the job.

Frequently Asked Questions

Run it yourself in Open3DAI

Send the same prompt or image to several engines, compare the meshes side by side, then export GLB, glTF, OBJ, STL, PLY or 3MF. Creating an account grants free credits and needs no card.