I've written all the sub patterns in tutorial threads. The most important is the BBGlossy thread.

There are actually three very broadly different subjects here.

One is pattern - often just dealt with (even by me) using a color map. But, making procedural patterns (for example, wood grain or scratches in painted wood) is a big deal, not easy at all. Goofing around snapping things together, you can come up with some fascinating patterns. But those are just happy accidents and it's like hitting random notes on a piano. Can you make one intentionally? Like fish scales in my avatar, for example? That's math and it's seriously hard. Most people can't do it, even after I explain how. And it's not physics so you can't even go look up what you need to do.

Two is what I used to call texture before I got into CG - bump or displacement shapes, turning a flat surface into something else. Since this sort of thing is usually based on noise, lots of people can stitch together useful noisy patterns. Little math is needed here, although if you're looking to produce something intentionally, it may be called for.

Three is mediation of light - diffuse reflection, specular reflection, refraction, scatter, dispersion, ... this is where you really really just should rely on presets. Because this is serious math which you can look up, but the problem is it's physics. You have to first know how the world works. Then you have to come up with a way of reproducting that without simulating individual photons - you have to know and take advantage of the statistics of large numbers of photons. Then you have to translate that into a specification that a computer can deal with, which is all math.

This last category is where I really shine and where people get the greatest benefit from just using my shaders. There's not a lot of arguing about creativity here . Glass is glass, metal is metal. You can build it yourself, but you're going to end up with the same equations I already did, and I mostly got them out of physics books. There's not a lot to invent here and call your own.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)