Help to unify UV maps

[patrickroykirkby]

Hi everyone, I've been modeling in 3DS max for a long time, not a pro by any means, but I still need some help getting better with UV mapping. For simple geometry I do fine, but I haven't been able to figure out a good way to unify the textures on something like this in my picture.

As you can see by the picture I have a low poly model with the wrist wraps on the arm, I created something simple just for reference and tweaking before I put any real effort into photoshopping some decent textures. Does anyone have any tips or tricks I may be missing that can help me unify the texture scaling? As you can see right now, the wraps change size as the faces change size. MY uv is a basic rectangle right now on the left. I've tried just about everything I can think of from pelt mapping and keeping its basic shape, to turning it into basic shapes in hopes to get it more simplified.

Thanks in advance!

[RobH2]

One thing you can try it to select each vertical column of verts in the UVW page and slide them left and right. The columns that represent arm mesh that is close together can be spread out. The columns that represent the larger arm parts can be slid closer together. As you watch the viewport when you slide, can visually start to make things a similar scale. It's not a very scientific method but it can work well enough to get you out of a jam. 

Try to model so that the polys are evenly spread out so when you put them on a texture, they aren't stretched or  compressed looking. I know that's not always possible, but I think for your arm (gauntlet I think it's called), you should be able to have pretty even polys as it's basically a cylinder. 

[patrickroykirkby]

Yeah, I'll just have to be a bit more thorough on my modeling, to be honest i just copied the faces from the arm and used a push modifier on it so that it wrapped the arm perfectly, but ill probably try what you said. Then the next trick is trying to get the "wraps" to meet up properly at the seam. Thanks