Hello Everyone,

I haven't worked with Maya for quite a while, but I used a CAD-Application called CATIA for the last 6 years and my workflow got heavily influenced by its programmable object-handling and modelling.

For my new job I have to create a simple animation in Maya and I need your advice on how to achieve a certain effect:

I need to animate and accurately texture earth during a one year period. While the basic animation will be simply a sphere following a ellipse (motionpath), the texturing is a bit more tricky.

I have 12 textures (one for each month with different ice distribution) that I want to blend one after the other. For greater flexibility I dont want to "hardwire" the blending but rather use some kind of counter (integer-variable from 1-12) to tell my shader when to blend. The counter should be triggered automatically when earth passes one of 12 fixed points on its motion path.

And now the problem:

I dont have the slightest clue where to start. I know the basics (maybe even a bit more) of the shader network and how powerful it is, but I never use a variable driven approach to influence my shaders. Any ideas that hint me in the right direction would be really appreciated.

regards cl10b