The Auto Group Command

When you are creating groups for a newly imported geometry (Setup room), you can save time and effort by clicking the Auto Group button near the bottom of the Group Editor palette. This option is particularly useful when you are creating custom Poser figures in the Setup room. If you choose to use the Auto Group feature, be sure to do so after creating, positioning, and naming the bone structure! This is because the Auto Group feature places polygons into groups based on their location in 3D space relative to the available bones. This can cause very unpredictable and disorganized results if the bone structure has not been properly created, positioned, and named.

If you use the Auto Group feature before you have created, positioned, and named the bone structure, it can result in unpredictable groups that will then require extensive time-consuming repair. The correct bone structure used by the Alyson and Ryan figures is shown in Poser Figures Hierarchy . Other Poser figures use similar hierarchies, but may have less control in mouth, hand, and feet parts.

The Auto Group feature is designed for one-time use when you first create a figure. You can use it as often as you wish; however, it completely regroups every polygon in the geometry or figure, which will cause the figure to lose all pre-existing group assignments that match bone names. If you must use the Auto Group feature again after creating your figure, do it with care.

The Auto Group feature causes Poser to take a “best guess” when grouping polygons and bones. You may find that you need to fine-tune the automatically created groups by manually selecting polygons and moving them to different groups. Do this by selecting the target group and then selecting the polygon(s) you wish to move to the target group.

The Grouping tool automatically removes polygons from other named groups (including NO_BONE) and adds them to the selected target group in order to avoid having polygons assigned to more than one group at a time. Group Editor palette commands do not share this functionality.