Yea this is not easy and never has been easy. I took me a while to understand it in the beginning. There are several tutorials out there. I recommend a video tutorial. http://www.poopinmymouth.com has a some. If you are doing a character you can use the the new pelt mapping feature. I suggest you do a search for that also.

Google Search: (I'm sure you will find something here)
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=free
+UVW+Unwrap+video+tutorial&btnG=Search&meta=

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We're getting very close, so close we can taste it. And it tastes like awesome.

the poop in my mouth in is good. like his other vids he shows you the tools and a lot of the theory behind a good uv layout, but don't expect to sit through it in one sitting. because honestly its boring as all hell. unwrapping to me, is the worst part of the whole modeling and texturing pipeline.

Anyway heres couple of things i've picked up.
- Pelt mapping is good but don't rely on it to do everything. I find it can make some seams a little too wild.
- To unwrap a head use a cylinder unwrap, but make sure the seam is at the back of the head. This will take care of most of the complicated unwrapping but you will still need to plane unwrap several parts to avoid stretching.

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and it's a story that might bore you, but you don't have to listen, because I always knew it was going to be like that.