Once all the pieces are separated, I got the unwrapping texture ready. I use a simple checkerboard texture. Some people get more elaborate, having multi-colored squares with numbers or letters in them (it makes it easier to see if something needs to be flipped horizontal if you have numbers, etc. in the squares) but in this case, I don't feel anything too special is necessary.

Open the Material Editor by pressing the M key. Choose any blank material sphere and click the little Square button next to Diffuse. A list will appear and from it, choose "Bitmap" and then it will open the standard windows file finder and you can pick your texture here. Above I have the checkerboard I use, you can save it and use it.

Once you have the material setup, click the button in the material editor (in row of buttons along top, just under all the spheres) so that the texture will show in the view port. Then Select all of the parts of the character and click the assign button(image 2 below)to assign the material to those objects.

Let’s start with the foot again. Select the foot. If you still had the symmetry modifier on the legs and had not collapsed it yet, then you should only have one foot that isn't symmetry here. That's good - we can throw symmetry on this later after we've unwrapped it.

If you do have both feet, and no symmetry, go to element select mode, select one of the feet and delete it.

Okay, now, make sure that you click on the word Editable poly and make sure none of the sub-selection types is selected (make sure you aren't in vertex, element, etc. mode)

It should look like the image below, with a + sign in front of the word Unwrap UVW. Click on the plus sign to expand it and see the sub selection options.

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A PLUS SIGN that means that when you applied the modifier, you were in one of the sub-selection types for edit poly (you were in vertex select mode, or one of the others). Just delete the unwrap modifier
and do it over, making sure you aren't in any of the sub-selection modes.

Once you have the Unwrap modifier on, Scroll down enough until you see the big Edit button. Click this button and it will open a window that shows you what your unwrapped UVs look like. Right now it probably looks like a mess, but don't worry. If you have dual-monitors, it's best if you can put this window on the other screen. If you don't, size it to a shape that you can work with it, but still work in the main max window. If you have to, minimize the edit window and then open it back up when you are ready to use it.

If you scroll further down in the unwrap modifier you'll see a section of Map Parameters. We will be using Planer and Cylindrical fur this character.

Make sure you are in Face select mode under Unwrap UVW and select the polys of the bottom of the shoe. You can toggle between solid red and slightly opaque red by pressing the F2 button. This will allow you to more easily see what polys you have selected (solid red) or make it so you can see the checker texture that's applied to the polys (opaque red).

A yellow square will appear around the selected polys. It may be on the wrong axis though, so click the Align X, Y, or Z buttons until you get the planar on the correct axis.

While the Planar button is still active (yellow) you can manipulate the yellow projection square's size, angle, and location with the normal move, rotate and scale tools. Scale the box until it looks like it's a perfect square (don't worry about being a perfect square, but you do want it square). If you got to the opaque red (F2) so you can see the checker texture, you'll see why it's important to get the projection gizmo to be a square. If the gizmo isn't square, neither is the texture. When done adjusting the gizmo, just click the Planar button to deactivate it, and then you can select more faces.

Now that we've done all of the projections we can go into the Edit window and start moving the UVs around themselves.

Along the bottom of the Edit UVWs window should be a bar that looks like the one below. I've circled the things that you'll frequently use from this window.

When you're ready to edit the individual UVs (vertices) make sure to uncheck this option.

The Rot. +90 and Rot. -90 options are often useful for rotating and entire object a set 90 degrees in one direction or another, so they're useful too.

There is also a set of buttons along the top of the edit window. Move, Rotate, Scale are pretty self-explanatory. The 3rd button (highlighted in the image below) is Freeform Mode and basically allows you to move, rotate, and scale, all in one, depending on where you click on the gizmo that appears. It is a very useful tool. It also gives you more control when scaling something.

Next to the Freeform tool is Mirror. The default will flip your selection horizontally. If you hold down on the button you can choose to flip vertically instead.
And further to the right in the windows is a box icon with checkers on it. Right now your edit window probably has the checkerboard texture in the background and it's making it difficult to see the UVs. If you click this button, it will turn off the texture preview in this window.