But, I am wanting to know how to create textures. I have photo shop and one of the things I am not real clear on is how to create an alpha channel. Does anyone know where I can get step by step intructions on creating textures? Thank you very much.

you might try the secondlife patterns, just do a search for them, dunno if they will work the same though. as for making alpha textures <and lol i'm still waiting on the client to download> but you should be able to just do a transparent layer and save it as a .tga or .png, i normally suggest tga, but like i said, i'm still waiting on it to download so i'm not sure what they use in here. As for actually creating alpha channels your best bet would be to just look up an online photoshop tutorial, there are plenty out there.

I hope this helps xD