I purchased a DVD from Alias a while back that explained how to map out uv's for texturing and I was extremely disapointed. The information was fine, but the two things that really, really held it back were the quality of the DVD and how the information was given. The image was extremely grainy. You could not make out the numbers in the channel box for instance. It was straining my eyes a lot. The information was god, but the guy doing the movie spent an unholy amount of time telling you what he was going to do before he did it. That time could have been spent actually doing it or saving space on the DVD for something else. Watching him move vertices around and talk in his dull voice was murder. I seriously almost fell asleep watching it which has never happened in my life before.

It took me about a month or so to watch it for a second time. I sped through the majority of it on that occassion and tried to pick out the good parts where I knew I needed help. It DID teach me how to manipulate UV's and stuff, and I probably would have had a difficult time learning otherwise, but it was a rocky road.

I highly recommend you download the free tutorials here at Simply Maya FIRST. Buy some points (they are extremely cheap when you consider what you're getting) and download some VIP tutorials after that. Truthfully, I think once you watch some tutorials, you will know enough about Maya so that you can ask more questions on the forum and find answers that way.