This shader works intwo stages. Adjusting the coverage slider in the material will transition between the stages.
Starting from completely transparent, the first stage dissolves in with an animated mask. The mask and normals are generated from a black and white texture, which uses partial derivatives to generate normals. There are controls for color, specular and gloss for this stage. This texture is world space projected from all six axis, so is independent of object UV's.
Once the first stage is filled in, it uses the same mask to transition to an unlit texture.