So I’ve been modeling for quite some time now, I can create quite advanced meshes but I’m never able to UV unwrap them. Thereby I’m following a tutorial step-by-step on YouTube; https://youtu.be/S6lSfOfiXHY?t=7m22s . I have followed each and every step in the tutorial, still my UV mapping fails as usual. I’m starting to think my Blender version is bugged, because absolutely none of my meshes have unwrapped normally. Or maybe I’m just really shit at it.
Here is an Imgur album if you can’t see the images; http://imgur.com/a/S7R0o
Personally speaking, I tend to separate the top / bottom faces from the main “pipe” with a seam. I then Unwrap those from a 'face 'view for them using “project from view” for just those faces. I then invert the selection and chose cyllinder unwrap, if that gives a bad result, I select one face on the pipe, then press ‘L’ to select linked making sure ‘seam’ is the terminator action. If I then do cube projecttion followed by ‘follow active quads’, I normally get a nice unwrap. Sound more effort than it is. If you like, I can whip up a quick video to show what I mean.
I am still new to blender as well, but what you are sharing is exactly the reason I am really starting to really hate the texturing phase of modeling. UV unwrapping never works right for me and is a constant exercise in frustration.
