The few times I have tried the Bend and Twist modifier I have had a lot of difficulty getting the effect I wanted. Does anyone out there have some hints? Like what are those check boxes at the bottom labled "In: x y z"? The manual's comments go right by me :-( Thanks in advance.. Ed CA (confused again)

You should only check the x,y, or z box for the axis you want to bend on.

Hi Ed, i use often the modifiers for my works and i can say that i reach almost always the results that i need. You can be more specific about the model that you want to deform?? Very often i use also bones to deform my model in complex ways. Another interesting technique is to apply several deformers on the same object. Oops, i've expandend a few this topic:-P BTW, let me know about the model where you want to apply the deformer. -TOXE

I was just trying to deform a simple box. I will come up with a screen shot and maybe in the process I can figure it out. Usually I can get what I want by mucking about for a while but it would be nice if I had a "method"! Thanks for the help.

You're not the only one confused by the bend and twist deformer. I end up guessing and playing with it untill I get what I want. Understanding it is going to be my next Carrara project. When I figure it out I'll post what I know. Keith

Bones are very nice for certain deformations. I was messing around one day with the old Poser pigtails; took them into Carrara, posed them with bones, exported the results as Poser morphs. The "trial and error" method is what I use on the bend deformer, too. At least it's real-time now. Under Ray Dream it was really un-fun opening the window, setting the deformer, going back to look at the results, re-opening the window... Within the Carrara workspace it is great that none of these deformations are permanent; you can stack them, adjust them, et al. But, annoyingly, if you export to annother application you just get the base object. You have to "convert deformed object to mesh" first.

I think they are pretty good deformers, as long as you keep the limits set, to define the precise area where the bending/twisting occurs.

One other whacky note on the bend and twist deformer. It appears to work based on the physical size of the object. So, if you're trying to deform a plane, the deformer has no scale in one of the dimensions to apply the deformation. Just a weird observation that can be a pain at times. -Kix

Another thing, don't forget that you can assign a value in the twist numeric field. It reach 180 with the slider, but you can set it to a bigger value. This is really useful when you need extreme twisting, for example a rope. If i remember well, there are other deformers that accept value beyond their slider limits... -TOXE

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Toxe, Nice tip on the twist numeric field.Thanks Ed