Please could someone show me an example of a donut shaped mesh unwrapped, I don't know what the best way to this is without getting seams or stretching.

I would probably only do it one of two ways...

Okay thanks, how would I go about unwrapping it they it is on the bottom example?

if both side are going to look the same then I like to cut it in half and lay them on top of each other, but only if its something small that no ones going to look at to much.

I would elect to do it the way Vrav shows with the second (more purple) UV's that have the primary seam running along the inside.

For one, the lines are running vertically and laterally. Since I'm assuming something like a donut (EDIT: tho you made no mention that you are modeling an actual donut) wouldn't receive a large map size, this is important to avoid stair-stepping.

Secondly, its much easier to create a clean tile along those straight edges than fidgeting with that curved nonsense.

Originally Posted by martynball

Okay thanks, how would I go about unwrapping it they it is on the bottom example?

pelt it, then simply straighten everything out. There is a slew scripts out there that can do this for you in a button-click. TexTools, just to name one, has a 'linear' feature which will align verts in that fashion.

Another advantage to Vrav's 2nd example is it can tile on both U and V. Very handy.

A cool trick someone showed me... you can bake a 3D procedural texture into a perfectly-tiling texture by simply using render-to-texture with a torus.

Originally Posted by martynball

Okay thanks, how would I go about unwrapping it they it is on the bottom example?

In max you make a Torus Primitive, check on "generate mapping coordinates" It will give you Vrav's bottom example.

If you forget, you can also use quick peel and then use straighten selection to square everything off again, very quick and easy (max2012).

Its a little more manual in <2011 you have to click a vertical edge, click loop, click ring, click flatten and then do the same for horiz.

Originally Posted by Eric Chadwick

Another advantage to Vrav's 2nd example is it can tile on both U and V. Very handy.

A cool trick someone showed me... you can bake a 3D procedural texture into a perfectly-tiling texture by simply using render-to-texture with a torus.

DUDE. Do you know how many ridiculously complicated setups I have used achieve that? Mind=BLOWN!

Hahah, mine was too. But... you get some distortion, it tends to vertically "pinch" a bit in the middle of the rendered map. The distortion amount varies with different torus radii, but it's always there.