Many people find it very difficult to model chain link fence because of it’s complex interlocking pattern. Mostly, beginners generally get stuck in modeling this type of stuff because they don’t know how to start. So, in this tutorial I am sharing my technique to model chain link fence in 3ds max with you guys. Let’s get started.
Step1
Let’s start by creating a basic shape of our wire fence. Go to Modify Panel > Shapes > Line and create a shape as shown in the image. You can use Snap tool for accuracy and make sure that Grid Points snap is on.
Step2
Select the mid vertex then right click > Smooth to smooth the curve from the mid portion. With the same vertex selected, right click > Bezier. It will bring up the two tangent handles of the vertex.
Step 3
Now, rotate the vertex 80 – 85 degrees in z-axis, and scale it a bit in y-axis. This will create a nice smooth room for interlocking.
Step 4
Select the spline and go to Rendering rollout, turn on the option Enable in Viewports. Now, click on Mirror tool and under Mirror dialog, set the mirror axis to y-axis and the clone selection to copy. Now, Press Ok to create the copy.
Step 5
Now, align the ends of both the objects by snapping their vertices together using Snap tool and after aligning, attach them together. Select both the vertices and weld them using right click > Weld vertices.
Note: Before aligning both the objects, do make sure that under “Grid and Snap settings”, vertex snap option is turned on.
Step 6
Now, copy the spline several times (depends upon how much long you want it to be) by Shift + dragging the object in x-axis. Make sure that the ends of every spline object are closed to each other so that we can easily weld them together. You can make use of Snap tool with vertex snapping on.
Step 7
Attach all the splines together to make them a single object and weld all the ends by making use of Weld option.
Step 8
Select the spline and mirror it using Mirror tool. This time mirror axis should be XY axis. Use Copy as clone selection. Now, align both the splines properly to get the interlocking wires effect as shown in Image.
Step 9
Copy both the objects by Shift-dragging them on z-axis. Now, you have a nice interlocking chain link fence ready to be used for your projects/work.
Step 10
One last thing to do is to attach all the spline objects together so that whenever you adjust the thickness of the wire fence then it will adjust the thickness of all spline objects at once as they are attached together. It’s an optional step to make things little easier.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learn something new from it. If you face any problem just leave your comments here or throw me an email. Good Luck!
