Wood is one of the most difficult textures I've had to try and make with only procedural textures, but I'm glad to announce there's a way to add knots to wood with grain distortion.

Though I only managed it yesterday (with a lot of grace), it looks cool so far and the actual tutorial should (prayerfully and hopefully) have a better result. The node system looks something like this:


This the result of above:

I have a few things I would like to change, such as the overwhelming uniform-ness of most of the lines and the sensitivity of the knots' dark spots (not enough in some places and too much in others, lol). The bottom of the fence is made of two directly applied (after the node one) textures. You can get that striped look by warping a blend texture with a cloud texture. Looks very cool imo.

Here's a quick scene with the fence:
I like the overall result so far, especially considering all is done with procedural textures.
With some fine-tuning I think this would be one of the highlight tutorial in the book!!

Thank YOU for all the support and assistance!! YOU rock!!