:making shaders

Just cribnotes for myself so these may or may not make sense. I took apart a couple of shaders I found off highend3d.com and this is what I've learned:
1. granite node: good for makng spots (like for skin spots).
2. layering alpha channels:
alpha + alpha + alpha: connect one alpha output to the alpha-offset of the sequential node.
3. layering contrast-y color channels:
color outputs to a multiply/divide node.
4. ramps and color: use ramp to remap colors of from lightest to darkest - output ramp to color.
5. remap ramp uv layout: (otherwise ramp results in a gradient layout)
- using other shader (blinn, lambert, phong) to get diffuse/ambient color uv layout.
- using facing ratio to remap highlight.
(map into ramp's u + v coord.)
6. condition node: connect two alphas into it for comparison to determine which of two other inputs (i.e. color channels) is outputted (to color channel.) - example: making a globe which has one color for land masses and another color for the oceans.
7. Env Sky (texture) node to reflected color slot: for quick env. reflections.
8. Layering bump maps - connect the Out Normal attribute of one bump map to the Normal Camera attribute of another.

oh yeah! merry christmas everyone!