If your using maya, a great Trying to pass time as I wait for a job to start... A great tool for skinning a character is ROADKILL you can get the plugin from highend 3D. it doesn't lay out the uvs automakicly but instead you select the border edges that you want to make and can preview them and change them while you work. great tool for organic models.

i guess most people knows this, roadkill is alos avilable as max plugin(not sure) and standalone application.

I guess most people know this, Roadkill uses Blender´s UV-mapping code.

So even if you don´t own one of the several thousand dollar apps you can easily do the same for free...