Need some help properly setting up UV's in 3dsMax

MoonManTV

Hi there, I got a question on how to go about getting the UV's for a "complex" object to resemble the 3d model as close as possible. As you can see in the picture below the "railing" consists out of 3 parts:

1. The pillars (red lines)
2. Squares to support the pillars (blue lines)
3. Main support ledges (black lines)



I noticed in the UV's that the especially part 2 (squares) are being distorted for some reason even when I relax it. Same goes for the pillars as they seem to all warp towards the right side. Is there anyway in which I can fix this issue?

Edit: I noticed I took the picture from a bad angle. The pillar has a seam vertically but at the back.

poopipe

Try to break the objects down to simple primitive shapes and UV them accordingly (turn off normalisation and use the built in primitive unwrap buttons in uvw unwrap) .

In this case, the uprights are cylinders and everything else is a box so it's easy

Angled shells will result in shitty artefacts so make sure the edges are  as straight as possible