I'm a programmer who's trying to learn a little basic 3D modelling. I'm reasonably comfortable with basic geometry modelling, and can unwrap and texture simple models. But I have a question...
When it comes to unwrapping models, all the tutorials emphasise the need to mark as few seams as possible when unwrapping a mesh. My question is, why? I'm guessing this is super-obvious to people with modelling experience, but not to me (given that my texturing efforts mostly are constrained to the generation of AO or normal maps).
I’m guessing that it’s purely to do with preserving the model’s shape when it comes to editing the diffuse texture? Is that the only reason you don’t want to simply cut every edge and lay all faces out individually?
I realise I’m displaying my utter ignorance of the subject matter when asking this question, so apologies, but sometimes the super-obvious things are the hardest to find answers to .