You know when you import scenes from daz or poser..and the meshes need to be fiddled around a bit..and you go to the select meshes ..where it gives you a gazillion trizillion no of names.. that all looks the same ..differing only by a number.. like -01 etc. depending on the scene/ objs.

Curious question..say i have to chose 20 meshes out of the gazillion trizillion of them..is there a short cut..rather than that chose one.. go back again to select meshes..chose another? Isn't there a cntl something or the other that one can do to select the meshes?

the scene me on is way too complicated to go to the scene..press contl till i get all the meshes under my mouse and chose the ones I want..

sigh..and isn't there a better way of naming meshes?? I now have something like untitled-roundgatewall 1-09 or whatever the numbers are.. 50 times.. I have no idea which number is for which bit of the wall...

That's a very good question Rosie!
I have run into it quite often myself and wondered why the creator didn't do more to identify the seperate meshes with distinct names, especially when they had to create them and then group them for their own use in creating the models(s). It's also frustrating when they group non-related meshes together that have nothing to do with each other like say, right engine nozzle and wings together, and then left engine nozzle and fuselage together on an airplane model. That makes it impossible to apply the same materials to the engines or seperate materials to the other parts.
I really don't understand why some go to the trouble of creating seemingly complicated models and they turn out to be one single mesh that has no seperate parts at all to them or why some complicated models are so sparing in their wireframes - you know those that have wireframes that seem to disappear as though they aren't connected to any other part of the model, buildings and terrain meshes being prime examples!

I know the answer will probably be that the creator did it for his/her convenience in creating the mesh and not the end user's, or that I could create something myself if I had a felt it was so easy to do. Unfortunately, I can't model and that's why I spend money to buy their models or download free items. But I still wish the creator could do better about distinct mesh naming and group seperation/integration sometimes - especially so they could facilitate the end user in applying thier own material variations to correspondingl meshes or specific parts of the models.

Rosie, Here is what I do... I select the group that has the mesh, go into the solo mode and just start at the beginning ... Click on the select mesh menu and just select them one at a time to be renamed.

Sigh....The begnninig is the only way in Bryce. Phew!!!!!

Thunderstone..the daily duties and drags are over..and my real life starts..aaah..to bryce..

ok.. upshot..the scene is all grouped as one.. I can't chose a group.. imagine a six sided wall with six rose church windows and doors.. and an orb on a stone altar..all grouped as ..yup.. one. Oh yeah..i forgot the floor.  I did manage to recreate a second orb/altar thingy..by choosing each item when I cntrl click..but.. tedious.. and i grouped the copy.. phew.

rstar's rant would work here.. i second it with both hands waving high up in the air.

Any idea how I'd choose just the rose windows? each mesh, each round thinggy bob has to be selected individually.

Oh..and rstar ranted at the modeler's. I rant at bryce.. why is it i just can't hold the long list and right click or shift click the names of individual models..rather than have to click at a mesh..go back to select mesh..click again..get sent back to select mesh.. click again?? Why does that list have to go everytime I click??

SSSIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

or can i and i just don't know it?

Far as I know each time you click a selected obj from the list the list will close and you have to do it over and over until all the desired meshes are checked. What a bummer it is to forget to hold the shift key down about half way through the ordeal! 

Being able to right click multiple desired meshes would be a nice feature for B7.1

Wishful thinking I know.

Yeah, its really tedious to have that selection list window keep closing after you select a mesh and then make you have to open it again and again to select additional meshes  - especially since it forces you to have to wait through having to scroll all the way down to pick one from the bottomof the list - sometimes through a list of hundreds. 
If Bryce would simply allow that window to remain open at the point of the last selected mesh without closing until you closed it, that alone would be a major time saver. 

However, I think the complaint about all inclusive "uni-meshes" , and meshes that seem to have connecting lines evaporate before they connect to another mesh - similar to how they do if they go below the groung plane, is valid for this post as well. 

If there are some key combinations to use for such problems, I haven't found them.

Try select all then ctrl shift. Instead of selecting the windows you could deselect the six walls, floor, and altar. Tedious, but not as many steps.

But if you actually used an image texture for the windows you can change in the material lab and they all will change.You don't have to select them all. Just pick one and pick the original square in the materials lab instead o fa blank one. Load the new texture and every object that uses that texture will match.

Rosie,
my best advice that I can give to you is to use anothem program to just edit the mesh you want to
use it, change the surfaces in the sense of regrouping them as one where needed , for example.
I am a Lighwave user, and I found the Modeler of it very fit to it, but I am sure you can find something even free of charge in the net.
For a start, there is the completely free Art of Illusion,
you can find it at

www.artofillusion.org

Follow the step instructions, it requires Java Runtime Enviroonment to run properly (also free stuff...). Of course you have to learn at least the basic of it... but I know that as Bryce user you natively adapt....

electro.. that's an excellent hint to work on when working with textures.  I'll do that. I need to select the rose windows to put a stained glass texture. Will be great to have them uniform at once instead of changing each one individually. Normally i go select each bit again.. pain if one bit is a tiny bit. and then change the textures.

great idea doing it back to front..it did work out easier.. Thanks a ton. Hugs.

zorzim..remember my last effort at vue? Looked like a baby mushed up cereal and slapped it onto the computer. Ok..not that bad.. but horrendous enough, I blush. I'll poke into the art of illusion. Someone did mention it a while ago out here.

skilillgee, rstar.. where is the bag where we can drop our wishes for Daz to read? i have a few...

Cheers and hugs..and thanks all! .

Yes, I remember your Vue period (à la Picasso blue period ?) and I did myself find many annoying
things about it. I love Bryce at least as you do, but the concept of doing something out of Bryce to get your artwork go forward ...  that was my point, I mentioned AoI because it was the first thing that came to me in terms of    " editing the mesh "....

If you import the object(s) into Bryce 4 first, each piece will be separate.
Save the scene as a Bryce 4 scene.
Open the scene in Bryce 5, 6, 7...
Click Select Mesh
Hold down the shift key as you click each separate mesh, that way the list will stay until you click outside of it.

You can also select all related meshes (i.e. those that have the same material) and assign them a family color.  That way you don't have to go back to the Select Mesh list again.  You just click on the color you assigned.  For instance, you could select all the body parts of a figure that share the texture map for the body and assign it a color.

An added bonus to having all the pieces separate is that you can adjust the textures for each part individually.  For instance, say your human figure is standing ankle deep in water.  You could assign a different specularity setting to the toes, feet, and shins to make them look wet.  Or say you have a figure wearing a shirt.  You could assign a Bryce procedural texture (stripes for instance) and then rotate the texture on the sleeves so they point in the proper directions.

You can also save your texture map, bump setting, specularity setting, transparency setting, etc. to your material library.  Then, for instance you could...

Import figure
Select body meshes
Assign family color
Assign saved material with texture, bump, transparency, specularity, etc.

Done