An explanation using Maya would be just fine.
But no humans please. Human's are upright not horizontal and it just confuses things trying to pelt a human and apply the theory to a four legged animal.
I'm an animal modeler in a human modeling world. ;-)
The main thing for me is to understand the actual specific actions needed to do it. Not just broad generalizations.
An assume I walked in off the street. And guide me step by step through it type of thing is what I really need.

For example:
Someone will say to me something like. Lay out the model on the X axis(side view) then cut off the top section. Then map the legs and body with a cylinder function. Then stitch the parts together.

Well for starters. These types of actions produce overlapped parts and don't tell you how to flatten them.
Secondly. Once you have all of the parts. You have seams where they once connected to the model. There are literally thousands of points that you'd have to stitch back together.
And most times it is physically impossible to figure out where to stitch them back together. Even if you tried to.
Look at the image I posted. Just imagine chopping those UV's into parts then rotating and remapping them around. Then trying to re-connect them. That's insane.
This is the typical type of tutorial I see, but that won't work.
What I need to know is HOW to flatten. HOW to spread. HOW to select. HOW to know where to stitch parts together.
Those kind of very important specifics.

Message edited on: 11/16/2005 17:26