Thank you Warlock - you just saved my sanity:)  Things have obviously changed a lot for the better since the tuts I've been trying to follow.  A lot simpler and very effective.

@maxxxmodelz - thanks for that link.  She does sound a lot like "Little Audrey", but, hey, when someone offers their expertise, I'm all too happy to get annoyed - she sort of grew on me after a couple of hours of repeats.  Finally sunk in, though and I managed to make some nice surfaces:

Thanks for the help - here is the link to the video http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.64/Bsurfaces_1.5

After drawing the grease pencil strokes and attempting to make a surface, I get the message "There are no strokes" - obviously something amiss with my grease pencil settings.  I've zoomed in as far as I can get to your settings in the properties panel, but can't quite make out what they are.  For instance, in the first picture, you have a set of four black boxes, one of which is selected - I don't see anything like that in my panel.

I would really appreciate it if you could post an enlarged view of the highlighted areas in the first and third pictures to give me a better understanding of your settings :)

Great pity Daz killed Hex through neglect, but, on the bright side, it lead me to Blender:)

Thanks for the links, guys - those are exactly what I'm looking for - going to have some fun with them!

Just as an aside and probably of academic interest at this point - you can speed up the selection of the corner facets in Hex by selecting the corner verts and converting selection to faces :)

Thanks for a very clever tut, LuxXeon :)

Here's my take, done in Hexagon in under a minute - most of which was spent selecting individual facets.  BTW, the Hex equivalent of Blender's "remove doubles" is "average weld" and in Hex you can specify the number of tessellations - cuts - at the point of insertion.  The extrude tool is admittedly scary when first using it, with geometry exploding all over the place, but it is easy to get them under control with delicate movements of the mouse :)

Been using Hex for many a year and never thought I'd bid it goodbye - until getting into Blender!  Now Hex is pretty clunky for me.

One thing I do miss about it are the surface modelling tools - Ruled Surface, Coons and Gordons.  Drawing out splines splines and joining (lofting ?) to form surfaces. Beveling Bezier curves and possibly Nurbs are about the closest I've come across in Blender so far, but not quite.

I'm still very much on the early learning curve in Blender and would love to know from experienced users what equivalents to these processes Blender has.

Edit :Oh dear - seems I can't post a pic!

Installed 2.75 yesterday and, following Lobo's advice, my plugins are all there - thank you :)

Aaah - thanks :)

Thanks for the replies - I'll have to look more carefully to see where that option is on first start-up :)

No, MCJ's plugin doesn't give you group names - you no longer need those for making clothing in DS, because the transfer utility does it all for you.  Don't know about Poser, though - I don't use it.

Aah - now I get it!

 What puzzled me is that there are 25 objects in the scene, with 25 mats in the Blend file - obviously one per object - but 43 textures, with names that don't clearly identify with the object - such as bump1.  Taking a closer look at the Blend, I see, when selecting one of the objects, a name for both the mat and texture.  What I couldn't figure out is how to associate a mat with it's accompanying texture.  What I eventually worked out was you simply append the mat file and the texture also loads.  Pic a different texture and you can mix and make different mats.  Very flexible with endless variations.

Got so used to expecting very complex actions in Blender, I couldn't see the wood for the trees :)

Thank you for putting me right :)

Yes, you are correct - it is intended for rendering a DS scene with Cycles, but also great for a simple method of getting a figure - any figure - into Blender to be used as a mannikin.

The Khalibloo plugin looks very interesting - needs a lot of studying to comprehend the full impact.  Thanks for pointing it out :)

Have you tried using MCJ's TeleBlender script.  Works wonderfully.  Exports a complete scene from DS, automatically opens Blender with the scene all set and mats optimised for Cycles.  You could simply send over an unposed figure.  

See this discussion and where to download http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/2877/

Firstly, my apologies for not responding earlier - i never received a notification that that there were any responses.

I have now, with your and the help of others, figured out how to append and link mats - there was one question left unanswered, perhaps ypou can help me out here.

The screenshot is of a collection of BL mats - how would I go about using one of them in a Blender file?  i.e. Isolating one, somehow exporting and then then appending/linking - something like that :) 

Some further questions regarding materials libraries..I downloaded a set from Blendswop http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/4364 and now know how to append and get the material on the object, but...

There are dozens of entries under both materials and textures.  When I append one and look in the node editor, all I ever get are a diffuse and an output node.  I have quite a lot of experience mixing etc. in Carrara, so know there must be at least a bump and a colour ramp to go with it, and sure enough there are quite a few bump mats.  How do I go about getting these into the node editor and how do i know which goes with which?

Aah - thanks for the explanation - I'll be sure to hit F :)

My apologies for not answering sooner - didn't get notification of a response.  Good suggestion, heddheld.  Now you set me another puzzle - what are "disconnected mats" ?