trying to improve my mapping and texture skill. do you guys recommend Ao ambient occlusion on model or diffuse map? or both?

I recommend practice instead of fancy buzzwords. If you have to ask a question like this you probably need more practice

I would polish the wireframe so it is more spectacular

before I get told off by trigger happy mods, are you talking about pre-rendered and GPU side AO?

sure i recommend AO bakes;

but i'm not 100% sure what you're asking

rattle that's a paddlin'

yes thank you, ao bakes is what i was getting at, i pretty much understand uv mapping but bit of a pain, i think im getting to like it bit more.

Uv wrapping becomes easier with time, though I found texture painting to still be incredibly difficult. Try looking at the work of others, and analyze what they are doing right, and how they may have achieved that.

AO depends on the model and the purpose of sed model. We'd probably have to see it. When I do ao, I just bake it out as a mask and apply it over the diffuse channel of whatever I'm working in so I can manipulate it separately.

If you hate every second of the UVW process and it takes you ridiculous amounts of time, you're probably doing it right. For organic models, use seams -> relaxing. For mechanical models, do strait unfolds on everything.

straigthen the borders and seams for specific lines (like the pectoris line on the chest for example) because drawing straight is much easier