@DocPhoton- I always forget that you like to export your work and then import into Lightwave, and since I do not use Lightwave I know nothing about the processes in that program.  The thing about instances that I have become aware of in Daz Studio is once you create the instance any change you make to it changes all of the instances of that type, so basically you have to make multiple individual  instances of an object and change them. Example  You have two different types of trees. TreesA and TreesB. You will make instances of TreesA and apply shaders or whatever to the original of set, then you  make instances of TreesB and apply shader or whatever to the original of the set. All of Trees A will look the same and all of TreesB will look the same. Explaining this to people that may be following this thread.  You can not make changes to the instances, but just to the original item.