It might be slipping by if C4 is feeling stuttery. . I don't do anything to the objects- just go to the view menu, and check Use Collision Detection. Then grab those handy-dandy new manipulators and drag the group down. Should work ok with the group closed (or it did for my simple two-sphere test ;-) The align tool is in the edit menu. Select the stuff you want to align (plane first, then group, otherwise you move the plane to the group). On the align popup, where it says Hotpoint, pull it down and switch to min. Select the Z axis, unselect the y axis, click OK. Markd