Shader descriptions???

As a complete noob to track modding, one thing I am really strugling with is understanding how to use the gmotor shaders.

I think I read somewhere that the descriptions inside the material editor are fairly self explanatory. Errrmm, I don't think so lol! Maybe for someone with a little experience but not for complete beginners like me.

Here's the description for "Blended grass infields"

Diffude+specular map, with bump map, tex1 lerp tex2
according to vertex alpha, mul tex3, tex3 and specular
masked by tex1 lerp tex2 alpha DX9.

Now I know what diffuse, spec, bump and vertex alpha are but the rest is hard to grasp.

Can someone put this description into plain English and how it correlates to the texture stages or point me to some documentation or resource that may help be better understand the different.

Thanks.

 

diffuse map with a specular map and bump map.
text 1 lerp text 2 according to vertex alpha. -- setting the vertex alpha values will control the blend between t1 and t2.
mul tex3, -- multa map is like a shadow map it can be white and black, only the black parts (or dark parts) will show.
tex3 and specular masked by t1 lerp t2 alpha. -- the alpha layer in t1 and t2, will mask the multa and spec map, ie, if the alpha layer is white, the multa and spec map will show, if the alpha is black, the multa and spec map wont show.

 

Thanks mianiak. I think I'm better off just playing around with the shaders and figuring it out for myself.

Here's my first attempt at some infield textures. Any advice would be welcome. I have used a simple 100mx100m plane for testing.