Im a beginner too since 2 weeks and I never been the kind of quy who read instuctions manuals but I did it with B5.Actually Im reading about textures and it is quite interesting and a little too complex to explain in a forum while you have all the infos in hand under HELP/help topics in B5.There also very good tutorials you can find through this very site.Your friend was right and I hope you`ll bring good rendering with a deep knowledge of texture component and material editing.