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| This is how a Group Object will look like in the viewport window. A Group Object is a simple primitive object that you can handle like all other objects, e.g., you can move, rotate or scale it. The only difference is, that Group Objects are always hidden in the final rendering - you can only see them in the viewport windows while working on your project. To create a Group Object just select the "Objects - Group Object" entry in the menu bar. There are two major uses for Group Objects:
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| Use Group Objects to manage object groups
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| Group Objects are simply used to group together a number of objects by linking them under the Group Object in a hierarchy.
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| This provides clarity in the object selection window (child nodes can be hidden) and you can select or de-select a whole group of objects just by clicking on the parent object of that group. For instance, if you have created a car consisting out of several hundreds of objects, simply link them under a Group Object "car". Then, every time you want to move that car, you only need to mark the "car" Group Object and move it to its new destination, all children will follow automatically.
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| Example: This box consists of 30 individual elements, all of which are subordinated to the green Group Object. To move all parts of the box at the same time you just need to select the parent Group Object and use it as a "grip" to carry all the elements of the box with it.
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| Group Objects provide movable reference points in animations
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| Group Objects can serve as reference points for rotating or scaling object groups in animations. If, e.g., you want to rotate a group of objects around a common midpoint you would link this group under a Group Object and just rotate the Group Object with its child objects. It's the same for camera rotations. If you want to circle the camera in an animation around another object or group of objects then just place a Group Object at the visual focus within that group and link the camera under this Group Object. Use the "Focus" camera function to center the Group Object in the camera view, then rotate the Group Object and the camera will rotate with it in a perfect circle and with the focus always centered to the object group.
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