Yes, I think the issue here is also, if it is an item onthe one hand, where usually users love to do their own designs and creations, like clothes. Or if it is on the other hand an item, which needs very many details even in the texturing, like I usually do them, vehicles, in example. What people like to customize in vehicle textures is most likely the overall color plus specific decals like number plates, stickers. In these products I take care to arrange the UV mapping in a way which should be easy to use for customized textures in these areas. Of course, an area where a decal or sticker should be placeable cannot be torn apart in various UV islands. But Substance Painter even makes such torn apart UV islands easy to paint on, same applies for Blacksmith3D, so probably this lures content creators into bad habits, and probably this is what the mentioned vendor meant when he said he does his textures in Substance Painter and therefore doesn't care about UV mapping?

But talking of clothes, I entirely agree with you here. While I don't usually create clothes as my content, I VERY often, if not literally ALWAYS re-texture existing clothing items from my libraries to use them. In these cases I use Substance Painter to create my new textures. This is when I discover many bad habits and negligence in UV mapping in so many items. Torn apart UV islands in areas where I want to have a continuous design is only one of them. Another one is, in areas where I want a straight line on the model (like sides of the legs, for example) to place a seam and stitches, I find the UV mapping done in a way which forces you to "curvy painting" in order to achieve a straight line on the object... Or you want to place a writing or a fashion brand, and you find the UV distorted in a way that you cannot write on it with a constant letter size but must distort things in UV space so they appear undistorted on the object later... Another very bad habit (in my personal humble oppinion) is: No UV mapping at all... Sure you can take a shortcut and skip your chrome areas during UV mapping and later apply a Poser shader tree to them. Poser materials often don't need UV mapping, they know the model geometry and will work in 3D space often enough without complaints. HOWEVER: When I want to apply my own textures (i.e. PBR texture maps from Substance Painter, Quixel, or downloaded from free sources), the regions without existing UVs cause severe problems. Imagine I dont want chrome, but instead painted areas there? Or I want a high quality chrome from Substance Painter with all the small scratches, spots of dust and rust, even blueish color variation because it is a heated motorcycle exhaust pipe? Only way I can do this is by re-mapping the model, putting in place proper UV mapping instead of the existing. In 8 or 9 out of 10 cases where I start re-texturing any existing Poser asset, I discover that I will have to start afresh with UV mapping first, unfortunately... Sometimes I realize the items are simply old content from the days when the Poser material room was the best quality you could get, so content creators became used to simply (not to say "lazily") skip UV mapping and put a shader in place instead. But in other cases of more recent content items, I realize, that often enough it is (simply and honestly said) just poor UV mapping skills on the vendors side (and their used software).

These things are very easy to handle with Substance Painter. For painting you can chose to do it in the viewport directly on the object, or "wrapping" around the object with a constant scaling, or in the traditional 2D way in the UV space. So you can easily find a solution for any upcoming problem. However, we (content creators) should not expect any customer to have the same. And once a client has found out, that the models of a specific vendor are a pain to do desired re-texturing, that vendor will most likely be skipped when it comes to new purchases, not true?

So I would, just like you, Miss B, like to encourage content creators not to forget clients needs when it comes to re-texturing (or other vendors to create fitting textures for your items, which can also boost your sales).

Even if my preferred modeling application Lightwave has UV creation and even "unwrapping" capabilities plus plugins, I never used these again ever since the moment I purchased UV Layout. I had also been using UV Mapper Pro for a while, but still forced to think in a "projection cage". UV-Layout lets you kind of cut the skin from your 3D object in a way you feel like holding it in your hands and simply cut pieces from it with a knife or scissors. No matter if these pieces are already flat, or if they have any shape imaginable. Then you go flattening it in the UV space. If you discover it cannot flatten well like this, you can add some cuts here or there, weld back other previously made cuttings, and try flattening again, or put the entire piece back on the model and start again with a different approach, until you have a desired result. With UV-Layout, UV mapping has not only become less painfull or less nuisance. It has instead become a real pleasure and FUN of its own in the content creation process! There are times when I look forward to UV mapping and can't wait finishing the construction. Had you told me before I had UV-Layout that UV mapping can be real fun, I might have shouted at you "go away and leave me alone with UV mapping!!!" Also the issue Miss B and others mentioned, distorted UVs: in UV-Layout you very easily relax the curved flattened poligon areas to a minimum distortion. Colored areas help you find stretched or compressed regions, where you can then easily apply corrections. Or, if you need a region perfectly staight in projection, because you want to place a straight line there or a decal on the template with Photoshop which should also be a straight line later on the model, you can easily place constraints which achieve exactly this.

Having re-mapped so may existing Poser content items, like I have done, practically almost daily for like 4 or 5 years now, I guess I could write a book about the various habits, mistakes and (un)capabilities you can find in them when you analize the UV mapping in object files. I'm not complaining, because I have learnt A LOT for myself from studying these non-desireable mappings and by improving or replacing them for my own personal use of the items. So many great items out there (even between the VERY old stuff from the content libraries), unfortunalely often with so poor UV quality.

'nough said, you see I can get emotional with this topic, because it is really such a pity when great content artists and modelers sometimes don't seem to be able to wrap their heads around UV mapping. Everybody interested in this should really try UV-Layout, there is a trial available and the cost is really considerable. And the creator and owner is an extremely friendly and helpful guy, Australian. Imagine, when I moved back to Europe after living for many years in Africa, I didn't yet have a bank account ready when I wanted to purchase UV-Layout. I contacted him and asked, how we could find a solution to transfer money to his account. Guess what he answered? "I have put in place for you the desired Pro license, so you can use it already now without limitations. Give me your adress, so I can ship the dongle. You can transfer the pay later, whenever you have managed to set up your financials." I will never forget this, thank you, Phil.

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Don't render faster than your artistic Guardian Angel can fly... ;-)

Poser 5 to Poser Pro 11, Lightwave 11.6.3, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, Substance B2M, Filter Forge 9, Blacksmith3D 6 Pro, Easy Pose 2, UV-Layout Pro, UVMapper Pro, Paintshop Pro 2019, Python, Pz3editor, PHI Hierarchy Builder, Headshop 12, Lux-Render, Reality3D, numerous utility programs