Awwww. Magic tricks aren't any fun once you know how they work! In this construction, just like a magic trick, your eye is directed to the bend of the rope. That shape is just a simple, flat spline extrusion path created in Adobe illustrator and imported into the spline room. (rectangle>Filter-zigzag>11curves per segment) The braid is created by making two separate spiral shapes in the spline room and then duplicating and rotating them to fit the opposite sides for a total of four spirals. How do you get them to match up? The numeric info for the flat/zigzag shape tells you the dimensions in Carrara of the object. Just count how many times the spiral needs to cross the zig or zag :) (depending on which is which) and that is the number of spirals needed; in this case, 6 and extrude the spiral the length of the side as indicated in the numeric info box for the shape that is being matched. My spirals needed to be scaled about 95% along the length to fit more closely. All of the spirals end abruptly. However, like a good magician, those ends are hidden from the eye in the smooth corner of the flat zig zag shape. As for shading, I used the DCG Tile shader in the bump channel with a setting of 200h and 16v. Hope this helps. I feel the Karma already ;) Mark