Basic texture wraparound problem

[C0Y0TE]

I find the world of UV unwrapping and texture mapping very difficult to grasp despite looking at tons of tutorials.

How should I - for instance - approach creating UV islands for a contorted figure? Should I do everything in a tpose including creating the islands and then leave symmetry and pose? Will the islands created still work or are they now useless?

The reason I ask is I have a model which I’ve posed and I want to wrap a uniform texture around him - say rows of polka dots for example. I’ve tried breaking the model into polygroups but when I apply a texture map the patterns are all different sizes. Through trial and error I’ve worked out how to rescale them but when I move them into alignment as islands they do not join up properly on the model despte my seams appearing ok. I get so far lining them up, then alter one of the islands and the others go off (despite being masked). Any help would be greatfully appreciated.

[Altea]

UVs are a vast field and depend mostly of what you want to do. Zbrush has some very nice automatic UV tools, but they could feel limited for hard surfaces or characters that need to be rigged. Also it depends how you are going to do the texture. If you are going to use Photoshop in any moment you need a clear layout that allows you to see what you are doing. With so many variables is not possible to give a quick recipe that fits all. Also you don’t provide specific visual examples of your problems.