I'm attempting to apply a texture image to a cylinder. After selecting all the faces in edit mode, the resulting unwrap always seems to meander all over the place, resulting in a distorted image applied.
Either the unwrap meanders like a snake, or if it comes out straight, the panes of the faces are all leaning over, like they've been sheared into trapezoids instead of symmetrical rectangles.
This makes it hard to apply a created image to the cylinder because it leans or twists about it. Tilting the image in the UV window does nothing for the problem as only the lines in the one direction can be aligned, the other ones perpendicular to them twist and wrap around the cylinder.



I've tried playing around with all the settings, but I can't see any changes take effect.
If I go thru and manually tweak each pane of the unwrap by selecting vertices, I can sometimes get a satisfactorily symmetrical image applied to the object (like a cylinder or a dish), but that is a horribly tedious operation, and then every time I resize the "map" on the image in the UV window for a better fit, it destroys the symmetry I'd just achieved and the panes are all uneven again. I figure there's got to be a better way to get a cylinder unwrap or a spherical unwrap?

BTW, playing with UV & orco, etc, made no difference either....
I've tried using the "UNWRAP" setting, the "CYLINDER FROM VIEW" setting, and the "SPHERE FROM VIEW" setting, but many times, no matter which plan view I select before unwrapping, the unwrap gives me this really stupid meandering result, sometimes even splitting the object up into two mirrored sides upon unwrapping, or scattering the individual face panes all over the place.
here are two cylinder unwraps from side and top plan views....
-side-

-top-

How do I stop this?
thx, Dave