This topic provides some suggestions about how to animate materials.
In general, you animate a basic material by changing its parameters in different keyframes while Auto Key is active. 3ds Max interpolates values between keyframes, as it does when you animate transforms and modifiers.
Be aware that the tracks for a material assigned to an object are distinct from the material tracks that belong to the Material Editor: animating a material in the Material Editor affects the scene only if the material is hot.
As with basic materials, you can create animation keys for map parameters.
The noise parameters and the Noise map itself provide the Phase parameter specifically for animating the noise function.
You can also produce an animated material by applying an animated bitmap as a map. This automated bitmap can be an AVI or MOV file, or an image sequence in the form of an IFL file.
Changing One Material into Another
Probably the easiest way to animate the change of one material into another is to create a Blend material, make the two other materials its sub-materials, and then animate its Mix Amount parameter.
When you animate a material, or use an animated bitmap in a material, you can create and view a preview of this material before you decide to use it in a fully rendered animation.
You can create a preview movie of an animated material. Use Make Preview in the Compact Material Editor, or Render Map in the Slate Material Editor.
Bitmaps have a Time rollout with controls that let you synchronize an animated bitmap with scene animation.
