[Door] UV Mapping

My next stage was to begin UV Mapping. UV Mapping is a way of unwrapping the mesh so that it can be skinned at a later stage. More often than not it is quite a time consuming process, and took me several attempts to get it correct.

The UVs should be layed out in such a way that you can easily see what each 'piece' is. This will make the entire skinning/texturing process that much easier. I followed a UV mapping tutorial on YouTube based on the 'Planar Mapping' technique. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnTn6gjPCVA&feature=relmfu]

This tutorial was very useful in understanding the overall theory of UV mapping. I also tried to experiment with the different mapping options including Cynlinder and Spherical mapping. The Automatic mapping setting seemed the most efficient and quickest, however some parts were layed out quite unusually.

This is my finished UV map, with all pieces of my mesh clearly visible and easy to work with.