How to perform basic tasks in Cycles vs. Blender Internal? In Blender Render let's say I want to texture a box.

This would be my process:


Model than UV UNWrap
Bake AO to a image set blend mode to multiply
Add diffuse texture with appropriate blend mode on a DIFFERENT UV Map to allow changing the size of the wood grains.
Add normal or bump with appropriate blend mode on same UV Map as AO.
Add "grunge" layer in which to add decals etc on same UV MAp as AO.


Doing this in Blender Render was really easy.

In cycles I'm getting VERY lost trying to do these exact same tasks. Even after looking at the manual. I think nodes just scare me I'm not sure. I've made SOME progress and I see the power of nodes, but helping me clear up how to do some common functions like these would probably set off a chain reaction of "Oh I see now".
Introduction to Nodes

Well, you can have all sort of nodes, mostly it's quite strait forward what the node does, for an instance the Transparency node or the diffuse, glass, glossy or emission node. Depending on what you want to make you might want to Mix two nodes, for that you would use a Mix Shader node or an Add Shader node, the difference is that the Mix Shader node has a more controll over the Factor that the two nodes are displayed. I'll give some examples of how you can do basic things with nodes.


Giving material an Image Texture

To give a material an Image Texture you would create a Diffuse Node then connect to it the Image Texture Node and plug the Diffuse Node in to the Surface slot in the Material Output Node.





Giving material a normal map

There are couple of ways that you can give your material a Normal Map but a common one would be by simply connecting a Normal Map node into the Normal slot  of the Diffuse Node, also for Normal Map to work properly you have to plug into the Color slot of the Normal Map node another Image Texture Node, this Image Texture would be your Normal Map.





Adding Decals to your material


Adding Decals to your model is slightly more difficult, to add a Decal to your material you would need to connect MixRGB Node into the Diffuse Node, then you will have to connect your Base Texture into the bottom slot and the Decal Image Texture into the upper slot of the MixRGB and finally use the Alpha value as the factor for them both, just like so: