a blast from the past!

yes, Castle Poser is a great, great site.  i learned so much about how certain nodes work there.  if you're into serious math, you might also check out some specific posts by bagginsbill where he describes the functions the nodes actually apply to input.  i know he has both Bias and Gain posted somewhere, and he's recently posted what he's figured out EdgeBlend does.

i script all of my materials with bagginsbill's Matmatic now, which enables me to whip out permutations of single materials and material collections quickly.  with one script, i can generate presets using different colors, textures, material types (velvet, suede, etc.) and rendering types in one fell swoop.  i highly recommend it for anyone who wants to make sets of materials or mat poses.  it's much easier than making materials color by color, texture by texture, bit by bit.  and you don't have to be heavy into materials to use it, just light into Python.