I only have Maya 6 im afriad, I see what you mean about having the interwineing curves thing. I only have stright, flat cylinders as my rope. I was sort of hopeing that a texture could do the rest and make it look like actual rope rather then me having to re-modell all of it. If that is what is needed then I will of course have to do that but that certainly would ruin my day

I have played around with ramp shders but nope of the ones I have downloaded or done myself cut's the mustard (if you know what I mean).

Every onwards thought.