The node system makes it possible for anyone to create powerful custom material assets. With Cinema 4D Release 20 MAXON has provided a number of pre-made material assets which you can access in the material manager. They are all just node-based materials with the most important parameters exposed, so anyone can use them without ever touching - or seeing for that matter - a single node. A great example is the Uber material. It resembles the standard material interface, but has somewhat different functionality. With the new asset building system a few interface elements have changed compared to the standard material system, and therefore the workflow. Instead of the texture drop-down menu we now have the new connector dot - or as some users call it the squircle - that allows us to insert any node including shaders and textures, layer stacks, gradients and more to the particular input. We can even just start typing the name of what we are looking for and the menu will filter the results accordingly making it very fast and easy to find. Once the input has been connected we can click on the connector dot again to replace it, layer something over it, convert it using another node, copy and paste it, remove it or even mute it temporarily. To see the attributes of the inserted node just click on its name and there they are. You can even use nodes to drive each one of these attributes as long as there's a connector dot available. Finally to see how the asset was created using nodes just click on the node editor button. The nodal material interface will open and you can dive into the all powerful and grandiose world of nodes. Although the uber material has a rather complex nodal setup given the many number of inputs and generalized functionality, rest assured that you can create your own specialized material asset that can be much simpler and even more powerful. Please don't forget to check out Cineversity.com for more Cinema 4D Release 20 tutorials, Quickstarts and reference videos.