Hello. I have seamless square texture and have mesh with UV map. Mesh (leg) has curved shape so ‘island’ in UV editor also has curved shape. What is best solution to get rid off ugly seams on such meshes. It is easy to apply seamless textures to simple objects like cube or cyllinder but curved shapes are tricky to me. So what is simpliest solution to make seamles transition in seams area without too much texture stretching? Maybe there are good tutorials on that matter?
I don’t think you can have all three; seamless square texture, curved UV, and no stretching.
The only two options I can think of are:
- Unwrap one quad to fill the space, then select all and unwrap follow quads. Use the UV limit and snapping to rescale to full image. All quads should look like nondistorted quads in the UV area.
- If curved UVs are required for density reasons, the only thing that comes to mind is to not use the image, but paint the lines yourself (at least guides).
I could be wrong, I’m certainly not good with UVs and I hate it like no tomorrow…
UV mapping is tricky for me too.
You are right - curved UV made for keeping density equal over mesh to prevent texture stretching and here i stuck at these seams. If i will go for first option you suggested i will get stretching so stripes will be distorted. So second option is more accpetable. But it looks to me really tricky to paint good pattern by hand on 3d mesh especially if pattern is not just stripe lines but something more complicated. I hope there are some other options how to apply seamless textures for such meshes. Anyway thank you for reply.
I do this kind of thing frequently for clothing pieces or avatar skins with clothing painted on. I’d try squaring up your edges in the UV map, and if necessary moving each vert (on the UV map only) until it lines up the way you want it to on the model. “Seamless” only means seamless at the edges of the texture - moving the edge verts to the edge of the image, in a straight line, would be your first step. Once you have the edges lined up, you can use the UV sculpt tool to even out the verts inside the island. Another thing that will help would be to clean up (on the model) those edges in the middle, so you have even quads and loops throughout the mesh.
Oh. Never even occurred to me. 
But yeah, getting it square first then UV sculpt sounds like a good approach, have to try that out someday.
Thank you. But how I should keep all stripes to have equal width? If i align edge vertices in UV editor to edge of square texture and then smooth inner vertices - lines will be distorted. My mesh is narrow at bottom and wide at top so if i align it to square, lines at top will be narrower and at the bottom will be wider.
Here is what i mean
While curved island give more pleasant result except ugly seam:
Try…
Select all faces
u > reset
Shift select one face with all the rest still selected, but one face active.
u > follow active quads
in UV editor scale down UV to the size of the tile
Thank you. This is interesting aproach and result is very close to what i want. Lines are equal at any part of mesh and can be easily aligned with texture edges.
There are some issues which i think could be fixed manually
UV map looks to me a bit weird but anyway this is acceptable solution for my problem. Thanks again yogyog!
Your mesh is so close to being a distorted cylinder… but you have two 3-poles under the knee.
By distorted cylinder I mean you could create a cylinder, create a load of edge loops … then without adding any polys or deleting any you could make that leg’s mash…
with a little editing you could make it a distorted cylinder again… then this method would work!
Ah now i’ve got sense of this method. But what if i will need to unwrap leg with feet? I could create cylinder
and using shrinkwrap change it’s shape to match shape of the leg+feet, thats way i will get nice UV map which is friendly for apllying tileble textures. But then i will lose topology - i mean those 3 polys things, they were made for better deformations. Also at feet area there are many such things like triangles and so on. Anyway i can manually make retopology of this cylinder to match it with original leg topology. Lot of work tho. 
This meathod only goes so far… it’s great for threads on screws and brick patterns and straps on rucksacks… but… could you even get a tileable texture on a foot? with no seams? You know how maps of the earth invariably distort the poles or somewhere else and how no map can not do that… no imagine the planet has toes. Good luck mapping that with no seams!
there is a seam along the toes.
Yes, i don’t mind toes seam but rest parts are without seams and stripe distortion. If there was way to transfer UV maps from one object to another with same shape but different topology. Maybe there is some addon which make such thing?
Can you do a cylindrical mapping (generated coords, tube mode might work) which you then bake out to whatever UV layout you have?
I will try to use cylindrical mapping and will post what result i will get! Thank you for advice.
Ya, I was giving you advice as though for stockings - where (depending on how they’re cut) they can look wider where there’s more stretch. But probably wouldn’t be angled like that. Is this a leg with a stocking or? Does the mesh need to be animated as well as textured successfully?
Yes this is leg with stockings at final i will use leg with foot and yes it need to be animated! So i need good texture UV without seams and good mesh topology for nice deformations.
Ah OK, then I’d use a texture with horizontal stripes, instead of slanted, and use the UV tools (I use a couple of addons, but don’t remember which for which version of Blender) to make a rectangle UV map with even quads or the ‘follow active quads’ method that yogyog suggested to get you started, then manually tweak if there’s any seam left. For a game platform I’d do a tiny texture with two stripes and big perfectly rectangular UV map with even quads (before they get triangulated for upload) and let the texture tile.
If the feet are a separate mesh your life will be easier if you make sure the bottom edge of the legs ends in the same color as the beginning of the foot.
Project From View, should solve it in no time IMHO.