Hi Ochanz,
This is done by nodes only now. This part is not different from Bforartists 1 and old Blender 2.79 with Cycles renderer. But a bit more tricky than the old BI materials.
Switch to shading tab with your object. Add a material to your object if you haven’t already. In the Properties editor have a look for the Materials Library VX panel. Here you can find lots of useful examples. I would start with the Basic library. And add a few materials from there by simply clicking at the Apply button.
I hope that helps 
Kind regards Reiner