For unwrapping:

-Select one element at a time to unwrap, not the whole mesh. The element is this little icon here under
the edit poly tab.
- Detach the element from the rest of the mesh. For this example im going to unwrap ONLY the top of
the tea cup

So I use the element button to select the top and hit detach

(which should be on the ribbon bar at the top of the screen)

then hit ok.

Now bring up Unwrap UVW in the modifer list and hit open UV editor. Select the shape inside the map
and go to mapping>normal mapping> and choose from either back/front, top/bottom, or left/right.
Decide which works best for your mesh. Since my shape is more flat and round, Im going to choose
top/bottom.
Now you should have neat little uvw map to work with. You want to go up to the drop down menu that
says checkerpattern and click checkerpattern. It will turn your mesh to checker squares and show you
where there are goofs.
On my mesh you can see that the handle of the lid was not well mapped because the squares are
distorted on the side

So in this case, I would relax the map by clicking one of these buttons on the side. (play with them, see
what they do)

Now my squares are much less distorted and texturing wont be difficult.

After you have your UVW map to your satisfaction, go to tools> render UVW and save your UVW maps
for texturing. Then exit out, right click your mesh and go to Edit Poly. YOU MUST do this to lock in your
UVW map. Its really easy to just click edit poly under the uvw but sometimes that takes away your
map progress.
Do the same for all other elements of your mesh. You can re-attach them and map them together or
map them under separate material IDs so that each of them gets their own texture in editor and their
own map. If a piece of mesh has an entire template to itself, it needs its own material ID too. The
material ID decides what pieces are textured the same, even if their uvw templates are different. So its
important that different uvw templates=different material IDs.
The only other advice I can give you is to play around in UVW editor. See how you can bend and move
your templates to make it easier for the person deriving from your product.

Materials
As said before, every piece of mesh that shares a different template needs its own Material ID. Material
IDs start at 0, and they must be marked with a number before you assign them to your mesh. In this
case Im going to give the lid of my teacup its own material ID because I want the template to be big
enough to add small details.
Select your mesh element and open Material editor.
On the left, scroll down the sample slots. Double click an empty one, then double click the list that pops
up in the middle screen. On the right side, change the part that says 0# - Default to [0] lid or
whatever youd like to label it. If its your first material it must be set to [0]. This means itll be the first
to show up in editor.
Click the button next to diffuse and choose any of the textures already in there, or you can click bitmap
and find the UVW template that you saved.

Youre going ^ to want to hit .. ^ these buttons:Assign material to selection and Show shaded
material in viewport.
Your material should be added to your mesh. Do the same for all mesh materials, but follow the number
order. Ie. [1] top, [2] pot, ect.

Skinning and exporting

Im not going to go through every step here, but I will tell you some things to look out for.
-

If you edit your mesh after its skinned, make sure to check Always deformed under the
advanced perimeters tab under the skin modifier. If you dont, the mesh will bounce back.
Make sure when making an accessory that the mesh is skinned to the Attachment Node (unless
you have it skinned to bone helpers for animation, in that case make sure they are linked to the
attachment node).
Export the attachment node as the skeleton file and make sure when you export the mesh that
it has the same skele selected
Is your mesh a head-accessory? Make sure the attachment node in edit mode is set to Head
with the H capitalized.
If all else fails, click on your mesh, go to the utilities tab on the right, click Reset X-form and reset
selected. Then change your mesh to editable poly, reskin and try again.