Hi Lyne,

Good to see you back... I always loved your stuff, too.

The term "shader" is just another word for the materials and textures that cover a surface. Instead of the "node-based" approach that Poser uses, it uses "channels" and trees of inter-related items.

For example, in Poser you'd plug a texture node into the diffuse socket to paint your colors on the object. In Carrara, you go into the color channel, and add a texture map level to it's tree, and add the texture map in there. Same thing, different name.

Note, though, that some things are handled differently in Carrara than in Poser (well, all 3D programs are a little different).

I can highly recommend Mark Bremmer's tutorial course over at VTC for all things Carrara but especially shaders. It's not unreasonably priced, and it's an amazingly in-depth look at every aspect of Carrara. He's got some free intro tutotrials at his web site http://www.markbremmer.com/ that can get you going.