Unwrapping before vert pushing?

Wobbly Lions

Hey guys!

So I'm trying my hand at some low-poly modelling and hand-painted texturing. My question is about whether I can unwrap the model before I exaggerate some of the shapes or not. As in, if I model a wooden post, can I do the UVs before I start pushing/pulling verts to give it that low poly stylised look?

I'm just thinking it would be a lot easier to handpaint the clean geometry than the wonky shapes the unwrap would have after I move things about. From what I've read up on I "think" I can unwrap the standard cylinder shape, then convert it back to editable poly and the UV will... magically work..? haha

Here's a link to a model similar to what I mean

http://3docean.net/item/low-poly-farm-fence-set/338575?WT.ac=category_thumb&WT.seg_1=category_thumb&WT.z_author=BITGEM

So if I say, model the lats of the fence there, and the unwrap the nice straight rectangles, convert back to editable poly and THEN move verts about, I can do that without majorly messing up the texture?

I'm using 3ds max for this btw

Neoekamp

I'd say if the texture is little in high-frequency detail, like the hand-painted texture in your example, and high-resolution enough, it should be fine. Better than making a new texture for each new variation.

Or if you're unwrapping to an all-purpose tiling texture, then you can probably re-relax the UVs after modifying the mesh