I have an object comprised of many smaller objects. I want to move the whole object without having to move each individual piece one by one. There must be a way, right?

Parent all but one of them to the one you didn't parent to anything.  When you move that, the rest will follow.  :)

Or, parent them to a Primitive and make the Primitive invisible.  Moving the Primitive will make them move.

Or, turn them into a single object in a modelling app. 

Thank you SamTherapy, and I thought that is how it should be done, but with the particular objects I have when I select 'Set Figure Parent...' the dialog box comes up with: "Choose parent for '???' " And the box is devoid of any object to parent to.

Why is that?

Load one object

Load the second object

With the second object active, do the parenting.  Parent it to the first object

Load the 3rd object. Parent it to the first one.

You can also parent through the hierarchy palette by selecting your parts and dragging to the parenting object.

Try setting the Parenting under the OBJECT menu, rather than the FIGURE menu. (P6)

Also, you may find it more efficient to use after parenting, if you parent all the separate objects to an invisible dummy prop, (such as a cube) so that any of the visible parts can be moved without effecting any of the others.

And, at the risk of being pedantic, it may also be helpful when parenting if you check "inherit bends of parent". 

That will result in the current position of each of the parented objects becoming their new default or "zeroed" positions with respect to their parent prop.

...did that make sense? 

Hi

This is one thing I have wanted to see for a long time.

A group command that lets you select multiple objects and group them so they move together, it would be nice if you could just Ctrl Click to select multiple objects and then just hit group.

The other thing I always wanted was the ability to seclect an object, like a fence post for instance, and copy and paste it to make multiples, without having to add it to the library as a prop etc.

Mike

you choose who will  be the master parent

Click "parent all"

every scene item  will become parented to that Master parent you chose
then save the master parent to the prop library and choose "select subset"

in the hiearchy manager  select the  master pparent while holding down both the ALT +command key

the entire set will be selected and  saved to your  prop library and will load all at once from your prop library in the future

I use batch import script from philc to bring  props from C4D With HUNDREDS of pieces for my poser physics dynamics  simulation
like the ones seen here
they are all saved as massive ready to use sets to my library

Cheers

Mike in 3 days and some odd hours the newest Poser's will have a grouping tool to do exacting what you are requesting. Group items and move as one per the features list on the SM webiste

Select a figure or prop and look under edit, you should see Duplicate and the figures name. If you are talking about an imported Object, before you save off the first time, it still shows up in the props menu does it not? If that is what you are trying to do, that I have never tried.

Hi Guys

I'll check both of these out.

I have to admitt that I always kind of ignored the Python Scripts thing.

Only recently have I started using some of it.

Thanks for the information.

Mike