How do you use a preset shader I.E Gold with the Vex Layered surface?

As i want to use the Gold shader but put an alpha texture over the top?
Is it possible to do this?

I understand how to build up texture layers in this shader but not how to apply a different shader as the base.

Any help appreciated

Sorry I dont think you can do that. If you know xsi or max for example think of gold preset and the vex layered surface two as materials, you can't just blend these in the gui to the best of my knowledge. Also the vex layered surface is a shader built using compiler pre-processor stuff and not so easy to read and modify, also due to the nature of its implementation it is not made using vops where you could more easily paste stuff in.

Best to learn a bit of vops, with the texture, occlusion, lighting model, reflective, uvcoords, add, multiply and mix nodes you can do quite a lot without it getting too technical. Also if you dig into the existing preset shaders from the gallery you will find them very nicely organized and with a bit of looking you can find the place where you might want to mix something else of your own in. Good luck,
Fabian

Also wondering whats the best way to texture a multi part object is using a group sop then a material node the way to go ? or better to use a vex multi layered texture?

Use the groups to break apart the geometry and then in the materials SOP node assign a material to each group(s).

Lyonz
How do you use a preset shader I.E Gold with the Vex Layered surface?

As i want to use the Gold shader but put an alpha texture over the top?
Is it possible to do this?

I understand how to build up texture layers in this shader but not how to apply a different shader as the base.

Any help appreciated

There's no support at all for this. You might want to check this out:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=18353&highlight= [sidefx.com]