The wire frames in the Master Skinnerz Pro Kits are made from data pulled directly from the CMX files included with the CMX Viewer. A custom-made program is used to do this, any decent graphics programmer should be able to make a similar tool, or at least understand how one might be made. The program can also pull just the 'faces' of each poly, which is a neat trick but of no real value for skinning.
The data from both the points (nodes) and sides (edges) of each triangle is used to create a metafile. There are various types of metafile that will work, wmf works fine.
The resulting wmf file is not quite square but it's an easy job to rescale it perfectly to whatever resolution desired (MSz kits have a 2048 x 2048 size by default, but a few rare kits have been made at higher resolutions for particular groups in the community and were not released publicly).
The wmf is then imported into Corel Draw and 'cleaned up' by hand for clearer viewing/skinning and to make the whole thing easier to understand. Individual 'wires' (edges of triangles in each poly) can be selected and removed as individual objects, which is what they now are - individual vector objects.
The finest line thickness possible is used in Corel to reduce pixelation when the final product is exported as a PSD. Since PSD is not a vector format the quality suffers slightly but the result is still very good.
*One kit (the XFG) was also made in SVG format. The only way this would work was to convert the various elements of the Pro Kit to eps and then import them into Inkscape, and finally export to SVG. Other methods tested failed to keep the kit and its layers/detail perfectly intact.
Because of the method used, the wire frames included in the Master Skinnerz Pro Kits have no background and can easily be placed on top of artwork without hiding it from view. The lines remain fairly clean after the PSD conversion because the data used to create the PSD was vector data, not a JPG or bitmap etc.
It is not difficult to export the Corel file (CDR) to various different formats including AI, EPS and other lossless formats, however in order to protect the hard work of the author and partly because most people don't use vector programs, the MSz kits were produced in PSD format (apart from a few rare examples as eluded to in the above text).
So in brief:
- Pull the data from the CMX mesh and make it a metafile.
- Import the metafile in into a vector program such as Corel Draw (or Adobe Illustrator).
- Make sure it is rescaled to square dimensions.
- Clean up the congested areas like door and bonnet seams, mirror stem polys etc. (if desired).
- Export as PSD, or whatever format you want to use with your graphics software, or better still make your skins in the vector program and export to JPG or DDS directly.
Hope this helps. Please don't message me any questions 'cos that's all I know!