For all bitmaps you should use vrayadvbitmap or vray bitmap.The vray adv(anced)bitmap has the advantage that it has something like the c4d filter shader built it, so you can color/gamma, brightness correct without the need of an extra shader direct in it. The quality of the vraybitmap shaders is a bit better than the internal c4d ones. In special if using hdri images. You do not need to change here to srgb mode anymore, the vraybitmap shaders do this correct from start.
For a layer type of shader uses the "layered shader", you can add as many shaders you want,yo can also stack them hierarchical endless (layer shader in a layer shader etc),there is a button to add layer channels. Make sure to have slider to 100% for all,and have set the on/off button to "on" for all. Best is to use c4d copy/paste command to place and copy your shaders.
For dirt use best the new dirt vray shader, you can put it anywhere and also layer or stack now.
For gradient use the "ramp" shader, it is the one nearest to c4d gradient(but can do some more)
for custom fresnel shader: We recommend using most time the built in vray ior which is a physical fresnel (in specular and refraction channel),
but if you need a custom fresnel use the vray falloff shader, it can do all the c4d frensel can do any quite some more.
Fusion shader: Use the blend shader for it, or the vray mix shader can also stack endless, combine with any other shader.
The vray mix shader has some more advanced settings
for tiles there is the vray tile shader. It is not exact the c4d tiles shader,but has some very interesting random features, also you can use bitmaps input to tile use the random and offset functions,etc
noise: There is no 1:1 replacement for the very powerful c4d noise, there are however some noise shaders in vray that can be endless a stacked and produce very complex noises. Also 3d noises. The thing is that in vray shaders every color input can be another (noise) shader again.
Various "noise" shaders (all being able to combine) are:
Rock
Noise
Noise Max
Granite
Leather
Cellular
Marble
Marble Max
Smoke
Speckle
Splat
Stucco
Swirl
Vray Cell
Vray Flagstone
Vray Rock
Vray vein
As said you can stack one noise into the other (endless) resulting in very complex noise formations.Of course you can also layer and mix them or combine with dirt and other parametric inputs. These are mostly all 3d shaders so can be used also for volume environment fog for example.
Also as you can use for each color input also a bitmap you can use the vray noise shaders to make crazy complex and nice noises that are procedual and bitmaps based at same time, like try a vray rock noise, with using 2 bitmaps shaders as inout(!), bets like 2 stome texturs,or 2 grimme noise bitmaps.
Edge shader: Some not direct in c4d but very nice: Best try it out, it renders the edges and segments of objects (wires)
Water, is a high end 3d vector shader for vector displacement, use in displacement material (3d displacement mode, rgb , vector mode on), it is based on the tessendorf waves algorithms. Start with wind magnitudes of around 10, patch size 500+,resolution 512. This makes very realistic and nice waves.
Color Correction: As said the vrayadvbitmap has already to most often used in,if you want more or stack in complex ways use Vray Color Correction Node and/or Vray Color Balance Node.Of course you can again combine and stack all pretty endless
checker: Is Vray Checker Shader, they work somehow similar, the main difference is that in vray you can use shaders or bitmaps as input, that allows quite some nice effects with it
Bulge is nice for texturing mesh or area lights
VrayIntensity is good if you want to multiply any input shader (to produce hdri values p.E)
Cloth shader is nice to make any kind of procedural fabrics, curtains etc
Grid makes what the name suggests, only that you can load vraybitmaps inside the fillings,so this can be used for nice bitmap work, specially if layered
Invert inverts any input (bitmap, shader )
VraySnow is a nice shader that puts "snow" or stuff, on top of things (depending on inclination),again this can be textures, stacked and layers to your needs,also used in displacement
AColorOp is a great shader to mix, blend or calculate a/b inputs in various ways, again each input can be another shader,bitmap, endless hierarchical stacked.
The shaders can also be stretched, scaled and tuned using the uvw parameter tab. Using the "crop" mode, you can use h,w values to 2d scale the shader, and u,v to offset it in 2d directions, with uv noise feature you can give a irregular, wave like noise variation to any shader, turn the check box on and play with size, amount,levels and phase values.
A file showing the new vray multi shader in vrayshaders list (it sfirst incarnation, quite some more features to come in it in next time),also assmallsideexample the new vray ambient light in it with a dirt materialin the ambient light to give you a very fast gi like light solution woth direct light plus "gi" (gi shader basednot activated via rendersetting, not a simple ao. Is flicker free for animation)
http://vrayforc4d1-8-example-files.s3.amazonaws.com/multi shader.zip
here an example withthe new vray water shader as vector dispacement:
http://vrayforc4d1-8-example-files.s3.amazonaws.com/simplewater shader example.zip