UV Map

Finally after what feels like hours and hours of work (well it was hours and hours but it feels longer) I have managed to complete my first successful attempt at UV mapping a character (and one I built from scratch no less). I've learnt a few things along the way, do whatever you can to make this process quicker/ more accurate. I think the next step will be to purchase UV layout ( a very good program which should help reduce the raw time required). But that said it hasn't been too bad using just the tools built into maya, I've been mainly using the unfold, and relax tools to spread the uvs, along with the uv smudge tool to move groups quite quickly and some one uv at a time adjustments. Theres also been a lot of cutting a sewing uvs in order to reposition seams, something I only really got the hang of towards the end so if I restarted again uv mapping from stratch I would probably get better results, but thats just down to the experience I've gained whilst doing it. Also something I've learnt has prompted a little internal debate as to what is the best way to start getting uvs for certain pieces. Now most things its pretty obvious and you can use the planar, cylindrical or spherical maps. But it the automatic map I have an issue with. You can specify how many angles it maps from but I find that it breaks parts down far too much forcing you to spend even more time piecing bits back together in order to have a managable number of pieces when it comes to painting the textures. This is a tool that if I do spend some more time using maya tools I will experiment with in order to better understand it. I might go back and have another wack at uv mapping my mech once I get through the texturing stage on this mesh, as I would love to see him textured.