UVMap issues, and ideas..

[Nova]

In an XNormal workflow, you only need to unwrap a model once, but you can never get around the fact that it does need to be unwrapped one way or another.

A display shelf should not be that big of an issue in wings, using Segment By>Projection, then Continue>Project Normal in the segmenting window. After that, it's usually just a little bit of stitching and moving/scaling.

For something boxy, I normally wouldn't use the XNormal approach of modelling a hi-res version, then baking the normals. Instead, I'd usually just rely on generating a normal map from diffuse/albedo textures. Of course, it depends on where the model needs to go, if it's a game or a movie, fx.

[Kagehi]

Yeah, well. The "shelf" is going to be just a flat plain, with "all" of the geometry done using the normal map, if possible. Not sure if this will produce the results I need though. I might end up with no better than if I had just used the flat texture. Its possible there just isn't actually enough difference to matter.