[MAYA] Creating straight uvs in maya for pixel art texture , cant get straighten uvs to work

sksk132937

Hello all. I am currently working on a character and I want it to have pixel textures. 
 I am confused about how to straighten uvs. I am currently trying it with this simple mesh, but whenever I try to straighten it, it looks deformed and you can see the stretching on the checker map. 

I tried different values of the straighten uv,s but it never looks good. I also tried selecting edges and press "straighten shell" but it only half works.
Im confused on what to do, i learned it would be necessary to have straight uv's for pixel art. 

Another example is this shirt. Also very warped...

Inspiration from this guy who also made a pixel character:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FteWqBSg4c&t=390s

MikeF

Generally ive found straighten uv's to be only helpfull at bringing into alignment a selection thats almost aligned but just slightly off (ex: unfolding a pipe usually has some distortion that can easily be fixed this way)

Id recommend using the allign tools instead since they allow you to select a boundary uv to align against. It takes longer, but for low poly pixel art its worth the work