Thanks for the suggestions guys, I appreciate it.

As far as UV Layout, I have not purchased it because of the cost. I do 99.5% of my modeling in Blender, and really, really REALLY like it's UV mapping abilities. I can have my model on the left side of monitor, and then open my UV editor open in the same window (you can have different areas of Bender sharing the "view" as it were.

This allows me to make sure I've got the right polys selected for the area I want to set up as a Mat Zone. It especially helps me realize if I've got polys selected that shouldn't be selected because they're on the wrong side of a seam (think underarm seam of a sleeve). Now this may be good for me because I've been doing it this way for so long. Folks get used to doing things their way, and often don't try it another way (not necessarily in different software), it's what you get used to.

The only other modeling app I have is Silo, and though I don't use it often, it has a couple of times "saved my bacon" as it were. Silo actually has not one, but two UV editors. The most used would be the same type of UV editor you would expect, but the second is a 3D UV editor, which I've never seen in any modeling app I've played with over the years.

The last time I used it, it helped me find folded over polys the creator of an outfit had made to give some of the edges a finished look. I was trying to do a few textures for it for use in Poser, but no matter what I did, the textures I was creating kept stretching, and not necessarily covering certain areas properly. Opening the OBJ in Silo, and using the 3D UV view, I was able to move the pieces of the mesh in directions you can't do in a flat UV editor, and was able to see where the edges were "thicker" (because of the folded over polys), and knew I wouldn't be able to do anything about it without adjusting the mesh, and since it wasn't mine, I couldn't do that.

Turns out the creator had folded the edges before creating the UV map, so the folded over polys weren't part of the UV map. I had to give up the idea of doing textures for the set, which was disappointing, but there was nothing I could do since it wasn't my mesh. A bit frustrating to say the least.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rant, and I will look into your suggestions.

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OK . . . Where's my chocolate?

Butterfly Dezignz