This is a quick update on DW1 progress. I think I've absorbed enough 3D modeling skills to show off something. It's not much to show but takes an insanely-long time (8+ hours) and effort to do (if anyone knows a better way please chime in). This is solely working on one model -- Erdrick.
I realized that building the 3D model via square blocks is accurate to the original pixel-per-pixel, it doesn't work too well when trying to animate the model. Also, it's not very efficient. This approach eats up a ton of polygons. Erdrick alone takes up 5,772 ploygons! Just imagine a village full of NPCs and you start to get the picture (12 characters x 5,772 polygons = 69,264 polygons).
So, I took it upon myself to reduce the number of polygons. I started by trying to pull vertices. But that proved beyond my current skill level as an amatuer modeler. So, I then tried cutting out the sides of the square that cannot be seen by the player. After an hour of that, I threw up my hands in frustration. It's way too tedious.
Then it donned on me that I could reduce the squares by making a larger, contiguous square. This large square piece would replace a ton of the small "perfect" 1x1x1 squares. This also allows me to "cheat" at texturing (i.e. I don't need to do UV wrap/unwrap; also trying to "paint" the model to look like the original). Texturing a square is far easier than the other skinning/texturing method (at least for me at this skill level).
So, that's pretty much everything I wanted to say in this post. I did try animating Erdrick (I'll post a fuller rundown later once I manage to get something post-worthy). The following are some pictures of the Erdrick model.
wireframe picture of the 5,772 polygon model:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a175/ ... 2_poly.jpg
wireframe picture of the 756 polygon model:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a175/ ... 6_poly.jpg
an edge face picture of the 756 polygon model:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a175/ ... 6_poly.jpg
Next up is deleting the sides of the polygon that players can't see and maybe attempt to wield then to other vertex to make a seamless model instead of a bunch of blocks grouped together (this is probably a contributing source of my animation woes).
UPDATE:
Wahoo! I've managed to reduce the polygon count of Erdrick down to 588 from 756 (down by 168!) just by deleting the non-visible sides of selected polygons.