Sorry for all the quetions today, but it seems that I cannot past the basics with the node editor, not only that, but with how Blender’s Cycles render has a completely different node system then the internal render does, which makes it even more confusing. So I have many questions that I would like to use this thread for, starting with the simpler questions and working my way up as oppose to posting in several threads.
So keeping things basic and starting with the internal render, I wanted to know, is there a way to add an influences node as oppose to using the sliders in the texture property panel? For example, in the texture property panel, therre are many different options you can enable under the influences such as difuse, geometry, shading etc and there is also the intensity of how much you want the influence to be applied, but is this possible to control in the node editor?
If I understand the question then typically you would use a image texture as the input to a diffuse shader and the output of the shader mixed, using a mix shader, with the other things you wanted to include in the material. The factor of the mix shader is the ‘influence’.
For example …
Hope this helps
Martin
Hi Martin, and thank you for your answer. In reply, accoring to my first question, I regret that you misunderstood me. I wanted to start with the old fasion internal render. You might be wandering why would I want to start this way, when Cycles is so much better. My reason for this, and maybe I should get straight to the point, I actually would like to use Cycles instead. However, for some reason, I cannot grasp what the displacment input is used for, since I am unable to control the influence of my displacement map, and I cannot understand why you can easily do this without the displacement modifier in Blender’s internal render. Is the displacement modifier the only solution for control when using Cycles? I thought maybe since I am still new, I should learn how to control the influence of my displacement map with Blender’s internal render first and then work my way to Cycles. Or, am I wrong with this idea and I should just do this in Cycles?
since I am unable to control the influence of my displacement map, and I cannot understand why you can easily do this without the displacement modifier in Blender’s internal render.
The displace modifier works when using the cycles renderer just as it does in the internal renderer. The Displacement input of the nodes is not for displacment maps, use it for bump maps. It won’t displace actual geometry as the modifier does
Thank you so much for this clearity. I guess I should of asked this from the get go. So with Martin’s answer and your answer, I think this sums things up for now, and I can continue on with my work. I am not saying things are perfect, but I now have a much clearer understanding thanks to you both and happy Blenering 
If I may, since this is a topic about gradually learning the node editor, I have came up with another question, which kind of falls back to my original question. Firstly, since I am not easily finding what I am looking for in the node editor, I am not sure if it I should just stick with the material and texture panels or using nodes. However, I would like to know how it is done. So, without further due, I see that in the material node editor, you can connect an extended material node. This gives more control over the specular, alpha, and shading channels. in addition to the diffuse channel. However, if I wanted to control these other channels besides the diffuse channel, why is there also an output to them. How would I combine these output channels into one since you can only have one wire connection pure channel?
