I'm no expert but: 1. Everything is parented to something (apart from the Universe). When you load a new figure, it is parented to the Universe. To see what your figure is parented to, use the hierarchy editor and collapse the branches of all the various figures and props until you can see what the parent of your figure/object it. 2. The only way to do that appears to be to use the Object menu -> Change parent. Just parent the figure back to the Universe, which is the default state. 3. They are not quite the same - there are some additional buttons in the hierarchy editor. Also, if you select Figure 1 (for example) and choose Set Figure Parent, you won't see the object you have selected in it - fairly obviously you can't parent a figure to itself. In the hierarchy editor you can set a parent by dragging and dropping the figure/prop onto another object. The one thing you can't do, for some reason, is drag and drop onto the Universe - Poser won't do that. Use Change parent instead.

Steve