Like lots of folks I have been excited by the stuff going on in the forum regarding shaders, material effects and so on but 90% of the programmer speak about shader stuff is just out of my reach. I'll risk revealing how far out of my reach by asking is there a tool that might allow me to experiment with simple shaders useable in 3DGS as is, or at least with some simple modifications? I saw that 3DS Max mentions a Dynamic Shader UI to create shaders and save the effects files for example and someone mentioned Render Monkey.

I still have a lot to learn so realistically shaders aren't an absolute need for me in the near future but I wouldn't mind experimenting a bit if there is a simpler way than some of the rocket-science code I've been seeing.

Also I am just a scout at the forefront of a huge noob army. It is likely there will be many questions ala "what are shaders, how do I use them, how can I apply a bump map, my company needs that water shader by tomorrow to ship my game, etc" so it might be good to place a basic FAQ on shaders to stem the flood.