You can save most environment settings (GI, IBL, lighting, and such) as an Atmosphere.

Then if you have a project for each pose and you make changes in one of them that would need to be applied to other projects, you simply safe the Atmosphere of the first project and load it in any others that need to be changed.

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76% of original size (was 661x19) - Click to enlarge

There are always many ways to approach the same requirements.Both justaviking and Micheal’s suggestions will work perfectly.I lean more towards justavikings second option...My approach would be spend time setting up my scene and lighting until I’m 100% happy. Then bring in my first set of characters and pose them. I’ll create and save this project as ‘pose one’ (for example) and render my first set of poses.Then, I would save the same project again, with a different name (eg ‘Pose two’)Then, Delete the first posed characters and bringing in my second set of characters with their relevant poses and render. Do a quick re-save...And then save the project under a different name (eg Pose three) and do the same...That way you will be able to go back to any of the sets of posed projects and fix it (if necessary)I usually use the same basic lighting set up for each ‘camera angle’ but then tweak them slightly to give the best look for that ‘camera shot’That would be my approach, at leastAllistair

You can save all the poses in the custom motion folder. You can also save all the expressions in the custom motion folder in the subfolder (Skript).
In order to save a pose or expression, you have to click on the + at bottom of panel. I created the poses from
the Spunky Moves motions. And I created my own expressions from the Face Key. Look at photos.
You can save your poses and expressions and apply them to any character. You save the motions by right clicking the animation and click save clip.76% of original size (was 661x19) - Click to enlarge

76% of original size (was 661x19) - Click to enlarge76% of original size (was 661x19) - Click to enlarge76% of original size (was 661x19) - Click to enlarge76% of original size (was 661x19) - Click to enlarge

I understand the challenge of using the same "scene" in different projects.  If you decide to adjust the lighting or anything like that, then you need to make the same change to multiple projects to keep them consistent.  Been there, done that.

Here's a crazy idea for you...  Turn the VISIBILITY=OFF for all the characters you do not want in a particular picture.  Then you won't accidentally pick the invisible ones and ruin their poses.

I'm not sure if that is a great idea, but it's an idea.  Actually it might be sort of a bad idea.  How would you know which characters belong to each other?  Via a clever naming convention?

I think a better option is the obvious one of having a copy of the project for each interaction, as you stated, which comes with the "maintenance" issue you already anticipate.

MY FIRST OPTION, if I was doing it, would be to just pose your characters at different times and move the unneeded characters off to the side.  Pose 1 at 1 second... pose 2 at 2 seconds... etc. . Eventually your project might slow down if you collect too many avatars in it, so you still might want multiple projects eventually.

Hopefully someone else chimes in with a better solution.  Good luck.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

I am creating a series of "photo" stills of various social interactions among co-workers in an office lounge. Each photo demonstrates a particular kind of social behavior, and will help illustrate a particular social theory. 
I have already created the lounge environment and all the actors (in Character Creator). For each "photo" the actors have to be placed and posed differently, but the environment remains the same. Note that I am not doing any animation, just using the tools of iClone to create the poses and expressions for multiple characters within complex social scenes taking place in the lounge.

My first question is: Should I do this all inside the same iClone project?

I assume I would then have to place all the actor positions/poses on a single timeline, and then render individual frames to take the "photos". My main problem here is that it is terribly easy to accidentally ruin a carefully constructed shot on the timeline while working on another shot somewhere else on the same timeline, since everything is interconnected (e.g. various values that are interpolated over time). The alternative I am considering is a separate iClone project for each behavior example, but then I need a way to easily share the same environment between iClone projects.

This leads to my second question: Is there a way I can re-use iClone environments (and then I mean everything from the props to the lighting and rendering settings) across projects? (other than just keep opening the same project and cloning it with Save As..., since it will then become a nightmare to update all the clones if anything needs to change in the environment).

Any insights appreciated! I am very excited about the quality of the test illustrations I have made using Character Creator and iClone, but I want to make sure I'm applying the best practice to accomplish my goal, before producing the rest of the illustrations.

Thank you very much! :-)