How to animate shader/material values

cschnei

The position, morphing and rotation of an object can be animated over the parameter tab via timeline.

But how can i animate a shader or material-value over time? (Question 1)

For Example:
How can i increase the refraction-index of an object from 1.0 to 2.0 during frame 10 to 20?

If it isn't possible, is there any good "hack/workaround" or Shader Mixer solution? (Question 2)

Something like a "Connect the X-Position of a dummy-primitive and apply it to a shader value"-Brick?

I tried to connect the "Variable Brick (Root Context)" with the "FrameNumber" value to the "Index Refraction" but nothing happened.
Edit: I was wrong, the "FrameNumber"-Value seem to work somehow, but produces very strange results.

The value seem to be "1" on every frame.

Richard Haseltine

Shader Mixer's Variable brick gives you access to time and/or frame number (I can't check just now, but at least one of them is available). If you can use 4Shared this is a simple example http://www.4shared.com/zip/ZI6wtq6Z/PulseTrace.html

cschnei

Thank you. I solved the problem with the FrameNumber brick by creating the same shader again (no idea, what was wrong before).

Nevertheless, is there any other solution?

Hardcoding every shader animation seem a bit long-winded.

Richard Haseltine

Well, it would depend what you are trying to do - you could certainly add Value bricks to set the repeat and offset of a pattern, for example.