I think what might help me would be a single simple example of each shader type, that I can adjust and learn about. For instance when adding a Shader, I can pick from, Surface Layer, Colour Shader, Displacement Shader, Surface Shader, Transform/Warp Shader and each of those has a number of categories under it, .e.g. Contour, Distance, Distribution Shader v4, Shader Array, etc
It would be really handy to know what each of these does and when to chose which one for some basic, straight forward results. Mostly I just poke and play and sometimes I like what I get and sometimes (too often) nothing interesting happens - how can I move from lost to master without the roseta stone of Shaders?
Surely there must be something like that floating about. ..
I'd like to create a large planet just beyond the horizon and then try all of the various ways of shading it to learn how to use the different shaders. But when I try this, I never get anything very interesting, just one or two colours, with some simple perlin noise, but real planets may have continents and clouds and larger patterns to them.
I think understanding this basic would go a long way toward imagination to realized image.
