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I always wanted to see AC3 models upclose from way back when i didn't even know what the game was about, i even tried porting some to SA after encountering your extracts
Not exactly PS1 models in my case, but indeed, learning Zmodeler 2 with low-poly model ports are an interesing experiment, as i managed to learn half perfectly how to convert the structure of the original models at the time
But still on the map topics, would like to give a word after reading the recent new posts from the thread, and seeing i helped Rauuru mostly with Blender doubts before
About imports, isn't one of the best... for aircraft and props in general, 2.79 is the best choice, but 2.49b was the one that i found better luck when importing the maps, as when opening the .vrml, the program would crash from 2.79 and onwards. the average time of import, at best, i would say it takes 2 to 3 hours as when you ask to import, Blender will freeze, until it shows the map imported, however the input lag still applies due you need to join all meshes and then export into .obj for using on the recent versions
Not sure if is something native from the maps or not, but on the upper left at the near end most of the time, they i'll have a junk mesh containing a lot of props which gathers a lot into the poly count, removing that one, along merging the mip titles with "merge by distance", having even few poly count helps at handling the model better
(currently i'm without my graphics boards, and those tests were made before the artifacts turned worse, but the input lag problem was more from 2.49b as the recent Blender versions had a better perfomace for handling bloated models)
Other issues are visible like backface culling, not sure if applied to the material settings, or it would occur when exporting, as some Unity models i tested i discovered they got culling issues because of the alpha blend modes, along assigning the textures in general, seeing for each map, they got "100" textures appoximately
So, despite possible to import at Blender to a extent, not sure if other software turns the workflow easier, even for AC7 where the only existing map import was a simple Backrooms import by Timothy, and Lean Viewer along with the AC3 models turned popular but weren't backported still, the two brief reasons i would say:
A.)the current version of the VRML script is broken, with the only working ones begin on 2.79 and 2.49b, even worse, 3.2 recently removed the support to Vertex Colors, as not only the AC3 models make use of this data, as UE4 games, including AC7, can make use of Vertex Colors too, so it was a reason that i recently downgraded from 2.92 when using 3.1 during the last months
B.)if the current method would be used, people would probably gave up during the 2.49b step, not counting map duplicates, porting all the AC3 maps probably would be a tiresome work, both on the model department, to converting them to Unreal Engine assets, as compared to cooking a simple model, maps can be a whole other history, as .umap despite getting advantages, are very bulky assets in general
But yeah, personally as having few casual knowledge of simulators, mostly FS and YSF, the latter having a Geofront map mod that i played a lot, the interest at backporting the AC3 Geofront model to AC7 is an interessing experiment challenge, as some stuff like M20's Selatapura could replicate most of the original mechanics correctly
(BTW yes, still active for people that may remember my existence, yes, SNS went deleted, however phpBB accounts, like at ZFX and Zenhax/Xentax, are more complicated to delete due requires admin support, so didn't bothered at going through seeing i could use those accounts still, but currently busy focusing more on my personal life, that required more attention)