Please check out JohnL3D's latest tutorial.
Its a great introduction to working with materials.

Turning a Cartoon Horse into a Zebra - A Materials Tutorial by JohnL3D

They'll be texturing models soon for 'Tin Woodsman of Oz'.
If you have information on Materials and Texturing (or want to learn more) please visit the Materials Forum. It's forum 46 on your A:M dial.

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Rodney as a second part using the same material as in the tut apply it to another 0bject like a tube and under the shortcut to material where is says displacement give it a value like 300.

this was an extruded tube with the material applied with the displacement setting and then rendered. Notice no color but displacement based on color changes

Nice variation on the theme.

Now under short cut to material have the material translate in the z direction
and you get something like this..sorry for compression jinglies

Here is the content that was on my old site that died when person sponsoring the site disappeared


Click to view attachment