The single nodes (shaders, textures, input, or whatever) can be grouped together and this is probably one of the best optimizations we can use to organize our workflow.
Thanks to node groups it's easy to store complex materials in ready-to-use libraries. It's possible to share or reuse them in other files or they can also be used to build handy shader interfaces, for easier tweaking of a material properties.
Start Blender and open the file
1301OS_02_09_basicshader.blend
:It's a sphere leaning on a floor plane and with four little cubes at the plane's corners; as you can see in the Node Editor, the sphere (the already selected object) has a simple material composed by a Diffuse and a Glossy shaders mixed via the Mix Shader node.
Now box select (mouse cursor in the Node Editor, press B and drag a box to include the nodes) the Diffuse and the Glossy nodes.
Press Ctrl + G on the keyboard, a pop up appears; left-click with the mouse to confirm that you want to create...