Question on UV unwrap complex objects

Hello there, I have a question about UV editing on complex objects. See the image below. I am trying to UV unwrap a column, but am unable to find any combination of seams which will unwrap it with faces to scale on the UV. I am beginning to think getting such a result is actually impossible (the below result was from drawing seams down each corner of the column.

So the question I have is, should I just go with the result I have here, and manually scale each UV zone to be about the correct size, then make the texture for this?

Or create the texture first with all sides laid out flat, and then just manually adjust each face’s zone?

Either of these options will take a long time to do, which isn’t such a problem, but how do people make UVs for seriously complex characters with curves and limbs etc. Surely those people dont have to manually position each face?

If anyone knows of any resources which teach the proper way to do this im all ears, as at the moment, UV unwrapping stuff seems like occult magic that doesnt follow any rules and shouldnt be dabbled with!

Can’t see the seams well but perhaps you had them like this


Check the object scale from the 3d view properties (hotkey N, in object mode). If the scale is non-uniform, meaning x, y or z scale is different from others, then the unwrap result might not be what you expect and Blender warns about it on the top header. If it is, ctrl+A -> scale to apply.

Another thing to try/check is the unwrap method on the operator panel after unwrapping.

I’m just another newbie, but my understanding of UV mapping increased tenfold by looking at Darrin Lile’s excellent YouTube series titled “Blender 2.7 UV Mapping”. Here’s the first video:

In part 3 and 4 he goes into UV mapping of characters.

I believe that you know that UV unwrapping is like cutting a box so that you put it flat on the ground and use that flat box to textures right?

This is just a simple way to put it. So when you are cutting the box you are making seams (places where you have cut). I start to understand UV unwrapping after many tries and errors. One good trick is to add a UV grid texture and the viewport shading to texture, when you will be cutting (making seams) you can see how the texture is behaving and you want all (at least most) the checker and plus sign to visible, no stretch and uniform size. This video talks about UV pretty well, i recommend it http://youtu.be/p4ngVoGIj1Q .
The more you do that, the clear thing will start to get. After your model is unwrapped then you will start to think about your seams. And keep working and asking the way we grow :wink: