So I was thinking I might have a workaround, but I can't seem to get Poser to do what I want. When you apply a MATERIAL that doesn't exist in the object, it's supposed to ask "This material collection contains materials that do not exist, would you like to create them?"

I created two NEW materials on the body of La Femme, and did my armor texture for them, naming them Armor, and ArmorLimbs. Then I saved the material. The problem is, despite the .mt5 having NO materials in common with LF, it is not asking me that question, it just asks "which material would you like to apply this to?"

I was thinking if I could get it to ask to create the NEW materials, since they are already correctly mapped to LF, it would apply the armor textures correctly.

EDIT: on further testing it looks like when poser asks if you would like to create the new material, it doesn't actually create a material at all... you can see it in the materials tab, but if you go to groups it does not exist. Looks like a completely useless feature, unless there is some way by Material collection or MAT pose to CREATE and texture a new material for your figure?

EDIT EDIT: so it looks like material groups are saved specifically to the OBJ, which requires creation of a cr2 every time you make a new material? if that's the case this method is a dud =/