Trying to use Carrara to create a twisted rope. I have not had much success since it seems to squeeze the rope in the middle when you rotate one end of a group of cylinders. I am using a spline object of three cylinders grouped with the Geometry, using extrusion method, pipeline and then twisting one section. It works sortof and can be used to make great screws but there doesn't seem to be a way to maintain the geometry as it is twisted around the center. Ideas?

Try using the spiral extrusion preset in the Spline modeler. Once you create the spiral shape, duplicate it and rotate it around so it fits inside the other to give it the twisted look. The attached photo will give you the approximate seetings to get you started. I only modified the first three setttings to get the right spiral.

I believe I've done this with the "twist" deformer, also. The part I liked about that is I could UVmap it before twisting it.

Thanks for the help. I missed that part of the tab with the presets...works great. Just what I was looking for. nomuse, thanks for the twist suggestions, I had not started to think about mapping the rope texture yet.

I'm remembering a little more. The trick with "twist" is the way the deformer is written, the ends don't form nicely. So I built long, twisted, then hacked the ends off.