Hi there mc-fleury.

When creating your materials, you can't just randomly connect up different things in the connection editor, you make connections depending on what you want your final material to look like. Using the connection editor I would say is one of the more advanced features of the texturing process, if your unsure what you are doing. I would suggest doing some tutorials/using Maya help/looking on the net about all the basics of materials/textures and the hypershade to give you a better understanding (forgive my ignorance if you do already know the basics).

Your questions:

- the alpha controls the transparent areas of your material/texture, and is used for compositing. The out color is the RGB channels of your material/texture.

- the sampler info node is used to sample each point on a surface being shaded, and gives information to the camera about each point. It is often used to give normal information, checking whether the normal is facing to or away from the camera. There is a better explanation in the Maya help files about these utility nodes.

What exactly are you trying to create? Post up a screenshot and I'll see if I can help.

LisaG