Unwrapping a Cylinder

The differences between unwrapping box shapes and more advanced shapes such as cylinders is that cylinders have many more faces to texture. 

To unwrap a cylinder we first select the top and bottom of the cylinder and using the Quick Planar tool, position the faces in the UVW map window. 

Next we want to unwrap the sides of the cylinder by selecting the faces around the cylinder and then using the Cylindrical Map option under the Projection tab. Taking the Scale tool within the UVW window, we can scale the textures to the correct proportions. 

Once we have all the UVWs scaled correctly, we can use the Pack tool to arrange the UVWs into the texture space. 

Now we can use the Render UVW Template option in the Tools menu to create a texture base for editing in Photoshop later. 

The Amazing Barrel (click to view in 3D)