@joojaa however, in my situation I have to first use pathfinder to make them all separate shapes.... which ends up creating tons of unwanted artifacts.

@WELZ why?

I dont see why youduse pathfinder for anything since the purpose of shape builder is to offer a alternative and better route to pathfinding

Yes

everything just has to be selected before you begin

so shapebuilder knows what to include

Ahh I didn't know that, thx. I'm out now, I'll try it later and let you know how it works