Asset Creation: Maya Character UV Mapping and Texturing - Creating Games with Unity and Maya - page 246

Step 23: Sew edges. Still in the UV Texture Editor, select the edges that the
two fly shells share (as you select the edge on one shell it will highlight
selected on the other). Select Polygons>Move and Sew UV Edges. The
not-quite-finished results are shown in Figure 9.17.
Figure 9.17 Sewing edges.
Step 24: Use Smooth UV tool's Unfold to relax the new shell.
Step 25: Rotate the shell so that the fly area is straight up and down
( Figure 9.18 ).
Figure 9.18 New fly region.
Why?
Rotating the shell is probably not mission critical. However, anytime
there are areas that need to be precise (people will notice if the fly is all
crooked), having it sit straight up and down will make the space easier to
paint within Photoshop.
Pouches, Packs, and Sheaths
Cylindrical projects work for lots of areas of the body (arms and legs as
illustrated are obvious cylindrical shapes). However, in our case there are
other shapes (namely all the pouches on Aegis's pants, his pack, and the
various holster and knife sheaths) that are essentially square.
In the next few steps we will look at how to UV map these sorts of forms.
Much of this is similar to the methodology used to map the level, so we
should be able to move through the steps quite quickly.
Step 26: Select the polygons of a pouch or pocket ( Figure 9.19 ). Which
one doesn't matter, but Figure 9.19 shows one that is mostly a cube in
shape.