Adventures across the 3rd dimension

*reads those posts*

Well it's not the Smart UV Project but I didn't mention which one did work.
I think it must have been the Lightmap one.

Still haven't unwrapped...

 

...but now I have and yes, it's the Lightmap projection that makes these awful grids.

 

They're overlapping again.

EDIT: *increases Margin value*

A failed attempt at texture painting implied that more polygons are needed.

I hate hard-surface modelling.

If you have UVs poly count shouldn't matter   (unless you are baking normals and stuff).

Banj wrote:

unless you are baking normals and stuff

Hahaha!   No.
I never get to that level of complexity/detail.

And it wasn't a UV problem. It's just that once I started trying to paint it it really exposed the lack of geometry in the model rather than covering it up in the way that I'd hoped.
And if I go back and change the geometry/topology I'll have to redo the unwrapping again.

I did try the subdivision thing but then it starts to look like a big balloon with no edges at all.

You can mark wanted hard edges as hard edges...
But on the other hand you know more about this than I do...

Edit: Or check that checkbox for normalwhatsits, so that the angle for when something is sharp becomes 30 (or whatever you choose) instead of I dunno what Blender usually goes with. 89?   

Subdivision surfaces require control edges or edge weighting to stop things turning into a blob. I would just add more edges where you need extra detail and leave it polygonal rather than use subds. It actually looked fine to me in your earlier picture (apart from the UVs  ).

Back to watching Blender tutorials.