I have read through the manual on layers and shader domains but still can't seem to apply different materials to text objects (ie different materials for the face, bevel, sides, back, etc...) Does anyone know of any tutorials or more in-depth info on this topic? Thanks

I think one of the 3DXtract dig mags had a tut on it... www.3dxtract.com... search around there also I highly reccomend purchasing "the carrara Studio 3 handbook" by Mike De La Flor.. will help a newbie a lot ( i use it more than the manual)

The simplest is to convert to the vertex modeler, and then assign the different faces with different shader domains in the vertex modeling room. After that, choose parametric mapping the the shader and the different shader domains you assigned will each come up and you can set them to each have a different multi-shader. Does this help, or just make it more confusing? Hope the former! :D Happy rendering!