in fact if you plan on taking maya seriously you should really do some/most/all of those tutorials

Please remember that this little journey of mine started with fur. And in point of fact I did do the tutorial that comes with Maya on fur. The problem that I expressed is EVEN in their tutorial there was no mention of UV mapping. So considering the size and the complexity of Maya I didn't feel the need to learn about it yet. Now I do. Thanks for the reply.

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