Typically, a realistic braid would require 3 cylinders or tubes. I personally prefer to model them as splines first, then convert those to polygon objects. I don't know if Silo has splines, and I haven't seen a good braid tutorial done with Silo (although i'm sure it's possible). Here's an old Maya tutorial, showing one way to model a hair braid:

http://www.3dtotal.com/index_tutorial_detailed.php?id=1196#.VjaWurerSUk

Here's the method I prefer, in 3dsmax, using splines to create any number of braided strands:

http://kevinjohn3d.blogspot.com/2007/12/creating-braid-in-3ds-max-method-2.html

And another older video, again for Maya, but this time in video format:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMFcN6hzzCo

This video is another example, similar in every way to the Maya technique, but in 3dsmax:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9_POQtruKE

Clearly, all of these tutorials are based on the same technique. So hopefully there is some information therein which you can glean, and utilize in your own application.

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