Quote - When you model clothing, for 3D models - you are suppose to assign the clothing groups that closely match the groups in the model you are creating for. Correct so far?

We're talking about Poser here, I assume. Other modellers will have different requirements... It doesn't have to be that close, actually. I usually try to get mine as close as the nearest polygon, but there's no need to get obsessive about it. One thing you do have to watch, though, is not to have too thin a strip in places like V3's chest, where it passes between the collars. I believe a minimum of three polygons wide is the guideline, but I've never put it to the test myself. The other thing to remember regarding grouping is that you never need the last group in the hierarchy at all. For instance, if you're making boots, you can omit the toe groups altogether. > Quote - Ok so this is the part I don't understand - people say "make sure your groups are welded"  but when I weld things, it will all  become one part.  IE lose all my groups.  To my common sense thinking weld means "join two things together in such a way that they become one".

So are there different kinds of welding?  Because obviously if I weld the groups and they become one group then Poser isn't going to read this thing right and my item will not conform right.  

Poser allows you to do this in two ways; it took me an age to comprehend the reality behind this concept. 1) You can have a completely welded mesh - but this doesn't mean that you can't have groups as well. A group, in Wavefront OBJ terms, is just a way of marking some polygons and giving them a common name. They can be joined together, or not; it doesn't matter. 2) Your body parts can be separate objects. Poser even allows these to be in different geometry files. It will weld the parts together for you, providing that the vertices along the edges which need welding are exactly in the same place; to the final decimal place. This is where stuff made in some modellers falls down, because they lose a little precision during the import/export process. Because the vertex positions are no longer identical, they don't get welded - and the mesh tears during bending. > Quote - What is it that people mean when they say to me to "weld my groups"?

Here's how I would do it: open your mesh in UVMapper. Make a note of the number of vertices, that the statistics dialog will show you. Then weld vertices. Hopefully the number of vertices will now be less; if not, either the mesh didn't need welding in the first place, or some inaccuracies have crept in so the vertex positions are no longer exactly coincident. If not, this may be fixable in yur modeller, but I don't know Hex well enough yet to offer advice. > Quote - Have I made any sense at all?

Have I? I hope that helped, if not, hit that reply button...