Properly unwrapped cylinder.

[Vizioen]

@Sawyer

Just asign a planar mapping, then an unwrap UVW modifier. In the Vertex selection, grab the lower verts and scale them out.
Won’t work for a lot of things because of slight stretching but for marble it will be fine. I’ve used this method before.
After you’re done with the simple model, you can now assign edgeloops to determine the hardness.

Exactly the answer I was looking for. Thank you Grant. Hope you’ll get back on the right track. Good luck.