Hi TheMormegil,
Thanks. I have been trying to learn, but doing long hours in angularjs at work has been sapping my attention span grr LOL.
I am only trying to build a shader which can use texture, a normalmap and can use 4 or 5 lights, as the standard shaders in irrlicht can only take light from one source.
However so far I haven't managed it. I will see if the directx9 stuff will help.