"I haven't given up yet although my brains are pretty much fried as a result of staring at ..."

I know the feeling, Hawarren. I realised eventually that all I was looking at was node soup, and that no amount of staring was going to produce a texture recipe.

In another thread Acadia asks HOW to know to use this node or that node to produce the desired effect. This was a burning question in my mind as well. Whilst there IS some documentation on the Anisotropic node or EdgeBlend node, and we know much more NOW than we did about that incredibly magical Blender node (thanks to Bagginsbill), effectively using them in a sentence is still a grey area for me. I can reasonably predict what will happen with certain nodes... but combining their action? grey area. How grey? Charcoal.

We were looking at procedural hair texture for a while... and I sort-of got caught up in a testing spree of Anisotropic and fractalSum and some other stuff but I didn't take this as far as BB would have because when I reach that impasse, I sort-of gave it up, whereas he would have presevered.

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks