UV mapping with Wings3D

[micheus]

Hi Hank, I didn't mapping something like a car before, so the only way to try talk about this subject I doing one (just half) - reason of my delay to answer you.

Stitch will just weld the mesh. So it's important that both edges segments have the same length, otherwise your mesh will be deformed again. Also, it's a good idea do not try to put every piece in its final location before you use Stitch - it will move them after welding.

For curved surfaces, something I use to do is mark for cut pieces (islands) trying to get the most flat stream as I can (its more as experiment, since I don't do that frequently). This way I can get less distortion, but for some textures it can be inconvenient.

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Here is the UV Editor with the edges I marked for cut. As you can see - after Unfolding the mesh - the pieces doesn't have the size proportional each other. One (in the middle of texture image is overlapping itself. I just selected it, changed to face mode and used the Project - Unfold and got it right.

I used the same operation to the other pieces and could get all of them in the proper size. I put the pieces as close as possible in their place - around the main one. Then I started move the edge loops toward to its correspondent in the main piece.

Then I used Stitch to weld the pieces trying to maximize the continuous area and I got this three pices:

Next step I tried to paint the texture using Gimp. I used this image as reference and that was the result:
as I copied the glass from the reference picture I needed to make a small adjust in the UV map.

It can look strange you don't see that area close to the tires not rounded (I don't know the name in English), but the goal was produce a texture as continue as possible in order stamp the text and have minimal distortion. Don't you think it is fine?

I believe someone with more paint skills would be able to produce a better result.