I'm wondering if there is any distinct advantages to grouping your meshes while they are still in the modeler app over grouping in Poser's Set-up room. I tend to like the idea of letting Poser do it automatically then I can simply go in and refine it.

Familiarity with the tools. That's really about it.

takes me 2 or more times longer to do it in poser compared to blender

I'm wondering if there is any distinct advantages to grouping your meshes while they are still in the modeler app over grouping in Poser's Set-up room. I tend to like the idea of letting Poser do it automatically then I can simply go in and refine it.

Basically, I find it tedious to do grouping in Poser. Sure, it can do it automagically, but that's not often the best way to group every item. For instance, I may have constructed geometry purposefully so it can be grouped a certain way and so that deformations occur as I want them to. That means that many groupings will end up being done by hand, by myself, rather than relying on Poser's Setup or Grouping options.

I find, for instance, Autogroup Editor, sold here, to be easier and quicker to use than Poser, simply because it's UI, camera and manipulator is more standard 3D modeling fair than Poser.

Are there any advantages to grouping outside Poser? Well, I think all the posters, so far, are correct - It's up to the user and their comfort with and knowledge of the tools they're using and what they find most efficient and desirable. A group is a group is a group, as far as Poser is concerned, and you can select certain faces, individually, in Poser's grouping process, so there's no real technical advantage to using outside programs.

I do all my grouping in Poser. The grouping tool can mirror from one side to the other. I don't have to spend an hour+ duplicating and renaming each group. Some areas can be tricky, but that's where the + and - keys come in handy. I do not like the auto group feature, I'd rather do it by hand. 

I use PhilC's OBJ2CR2 utlity for figures that are supported by it, otherwise I group in Blender. I like being able to colour the different groups so that I can clearly see what I am doing.

I, too, use Auto Group Editor.  I find the Poser grouping tool to be too "iffy" with grouping.  As an example.....I recently grouped a Dusk set in Poser.  The shirt grouped fine, the pants, not so much.  The pants were an awful mess when grouped that way.

Poser assumes "conventional" grouping, so when you are rigging in an unconventional way, you can't use Poser to rig.  A perfect example is a skirt where you want the thighs to follow a weight mapped figure.  Grouping in Poser groups the thighs into the skirt, resulting in a broken rig.

I had to do a double-take for the title of this thread, thought it said "Groping Outside of Poser" :-D

Correction.....I said in my previous post.....

"so when you are rigging in an unconventional way, you can't use Poser to rig"

I meant, so when you are rigging in an unconventional way, you can't use Poser to group.

Sorry for the error.

Correction.....I said in my previous post.....

"so when you are rigging in an unconventional way, you can't use Poser to rig"

I meant, so when you are rigging in an unconventional way, you can't use Poser to group.

Sorry for the error.

I followed you just fine, no problem. :) Poser's automagic grouping tool is wonderous, by previous Poser standards when people were slaved to going polygon-by-polygon. But, it's not good for certain things, especially in items where you don't want the groups directly superimposed, like you said. For that sort of thing, I would just use someone else's rig for personal use. For instance, if I made a skirt, I'd just load up a well rigged skirt that I already had and transfer that rig. Poser doesn't care if it's the intended parent figure or not.

Note: In P2012 Pro, you can transfer the rig without requiring the implementation of new groups. This is useful specifically for single grouped "hip" skirt items and the like. But, it could be useful for other figures, provided the necessary groups for Poser's basic rigging logic/hierarchy are already there.

The Poser autogroup "misses" in a few area's.

1. it does not know that rCollar and lCollar can not be welded together.(You need a chest or neck in between)
2. It does not know that rThigh and lThigh can not be welded together. (You need a hip in between).

As Nanette, I group in Blender. Far more control and failsafe.

Correction.....I said in my previous post.....

"so when you are rigging in an unconventional way, you can't use Poser to rig"

I meant, so when you are rigging in an unconventional way, you can't use Poser to group.

Sorry for the error.

I followed you just fine, no problem. :) Poser's automagic grouping tool is wonderous, by previous Poser standards when people were slaved to going polygon-by-polygon. But, it's not good for certain things, especially in items where you don't want the groups directly superimposed, like you said. For that sort of thing, I would just use someone else's rig for personal use. For instance, if I made a skirt, I'd just load up a well rigged skirt that I already had and transfer that rig. Poser doesn't care if it's the intended parent figure or not.

Note: In P2012 Pro, you can transfer the rig without requiring the implementation of new groups. This is useful specifically for single grouped "hip" skirt items and the like. But, it could be useful for other figures, provided the necessary groups for Poser's basic rigging logic/hierarchy are already there.

It was such a glaring error, I had to correct it.  But, thanks.  I think most understood what I meant, but I was thinking about the poor newbie who pulled this thread up on google a year from now.
It was too late to edit the original post when I saw it.

Well, so far, I don't see any reason to stop using Poser so long as I'm comfortable with the job it is doing.But i may also investigate  a couple of the other  suggestions as well.