In such a case the cubic mapper works reasonably well, especially when you do use such a map (but try it with a simple ball).
Excellent suggestion, thanks. Starting with a simple shape like a ball makes
more sense than what I'm doing, starting with a very complicated one.
A simple ball in Cheetah already has it's uv's defined, spherically mapped I suspect.
But if you make it editable and add or subtract geometry, you may need to redefine them.
Observations:
The UV Mapper-
1. It doesn't need seams, but it uses the same calculations as auto seams and cuts along the same lines, without the green line.
2. It stacks all uv islands in a big pile, and you have to separate and rotate them, which is a pain.
3. The uv islands are not rotated at weird angles.
Unwrapping-
1. For a simple ball if you use Automatic Seams, you get the same uv Islands as you do from cubic mapping, but separated.
2. The uv islands, in this case, are not rotated at weird angles, but may be in other cases.
Much more testing is needed as with each test, many more questions arise.
I'm hopeful the uv pinning will make the difference.