Anim8or Community

Animat, what you're talking about involves "unwrapping the UV's" of the object.  That means you need a program such as 'UV mapper', 'Lithunwrap', 'roadkill', or 'wings 3d' to help you with the UV mapping.  What you do, is "unwrap" the object, making it go from 3d to 2d.  So you basically create seams on the object and take the faces and lay them out on a 2d plane.  That's the simplest way I can explain.  So if I were you, I'd google for those programs, google UV mapping and google for tutorials to help you, and I'm sure you can figure out how to use it
Good luck!