Thanks, EnglishBob. I was starting to scream just a little. So many times, I read these threads where the problem-solving process is a tight circle between "Download another piece of software and use the buttons" and "Try to guess what it did to the mesh." Sometimes, leaving all those shiny tools and that comfortable level of abstraction and getting a little closer to the bare metal will tell you so much more about the process. The mesh divisions in an .obj file that are recognized by Poser occur in the "faces" section -- after the vertices -- and are in the format of "everything after this comment belongs to the group described." "Group" comments are in the format "g group_name," and "material" comments are in the format "usemtl material_name." You can change, delete, and combine these comments using a variety of tools; down to and including a lowly text editor. With the right search terms you can quite easily selectively change some of them and leave the others alone. Similar comments can be made about the Phi file, which is a dead-simple text document that is used as an instruction set by Poser to create a new hierarchy. The situation of Poser's basic DNA, the cr2 and similar formats, is akin but not as simple. Some parts of the cr2 are easy to puzzle out (the geometry calls near the top, for instance.) The rest of it needs a little more time and skill to get used to! Most modeling software has some way to create named polygon groups. It is usually simplest to make these in the original modeler rather than try to create them later with UVmapper or Poser itself. And, yes, using material domains is a work-around; with clever enough names you can do a find-and-replace of just your groups and leave the "actual" materials intact.