Hi jpaluck,

> Michael - It would be nice to have the basic deformers like bend and twist..I know
> you said you going to put them in sometime..maybe V3?

Bend is now possible in v3 by using the new Transform > Deform > Flow command.

You draw one line down the middle of your object as the base backbone curve, and then draw an arc or other bendy curve for the target, then you can use Flow to transform from one backbone to the other. In the first v3 beta there is a bug where the curves need to be drawn in the top view (curves in the world x/y plane) for curve-to-curve based flow to work currently though, so keep that in mind.

I am also working on a twist command as well.

Another way to produce a twisted result is to make a base profile curve and use Transform > Array > Circular to replicate it with a rotation and step applied, then loft through the set of curves that are produced, see here for an example:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4464.12

Using the same technique from the link above for your case would look something like this:

Start with one circle off to the side:



Run Transform > Array > Circular to replicate that around the center point:



Select all those circles and run Construct > Boolean > Union to combine them all together trimming away the interior parts:



The inside portion of that won't be used so you can just delete it.

That then leaves you with the profile curve - select it and replicate it using Transform > Array > Circular again, but this time use a lot more steps and also set the "Vertical step" parameter so that each rotated copy also takes a step upwards, that will make a pattern like this:




You can now select all those curves and generate an object through them by using Construct > Loft, that will make this result:




This technique makes really good geometry - for braided things like this which don't have any interruptions in them it may be better to do it this way than using Twist even when twist is available.

Twist will be more general purpose modifier and will be able to twist something with holes in it or stuff like that but if you just want a straight piece, this current technique is probably the way to go.

- Michael