I am looking for the simplest/best way to create a chain-link fence. Any suggestions on how to approach this would be appreciated.

It rather depends on how much detail you want, i.e. how close the fence is to the camera. If it is not too close then presumably a bump/trans map shader applied to a plane would do the trick.
If you want detail then you'll need to model a link and then duplicate it to construct your fence. I'd use the Spline Modeler for this.

Message edited on: 06/15/2004 03:07

If you want the fence to be modeled but don't need detail of the actual links then the extrude unlinked polys trick should suffice. In the Vertex Modeler add a grid. With the whole thing selected extrude by a small amount (about .05 inch)with the Link Polys box unchecked. Then, without touching anything, empty the polys (Ctrl+Shft+F). Then Select All (Ctrl+A) and extrude again by the same small amount to add a bit of thickness to your links.

Message edited on: 06/15/2004 04:24

I haven't looked at the Carrara content disk in much detail, but in the old Ray Dream Studio content disk, there was a nicely modeled chain link fence segment. If you're just wanting the fence and not looking to model it yourself, that is. Otherwise, and if it needs to stand up to close scrutiny, I'd do it in the spline modeler, creating each long wire strand using the pipeline extrusion, bending it appropriately. Having good reference photos (or even a real section of chain link) would be very helpful.

sfdex is right about the content cd having a chain link fence. It's under home4.