Season integration (a rather huge suggestion)

[xDonnervogelx]

Hello there!

I'm mainly a Gaia Pro 2021 user currently. As of now, I am curious about what could be possible in the matters of integrating seasonal stages within Gaia Pro 2021 (and further).
To give an example of my idea, or suggestion, let me introduce you to following scenario:
You're building a huge world, that got its own respective biomes, and everything. But you also have a yearly change of seasons. You would love to have an easy and fast solution for that task.
My idea: You will have the opportunity to set your assets into "seasonal stages", which by default are 4, but you are able to set up more or less, for each biome. There will be a smooth transition in material colors or shapes, when switching between seasons (trees lose/grow leaves/get covered in snow by chance, etc.). You can set up whether your assets stay in one season, or loop through a specific amount of them, based on your needs for your project. You can set the time amount for each season, which by default is at a medium speed (I'd love to see customizable variables in here). There will be snow spawners for the cold season, and also changes in leaf/grass tint depending on the season.

Each biome would hold its own "season" tab and its own settings, which can be saved and transferred to other biomes, if necessary. Also, it would support changes in entity materials, or shape. For example: A polar fox is dark in summer and light in winter. If there is an asset holding two materials or two Albedo textures, or anything alike (depending on the asset), you can easily set this up in the respective season tab, define one for summer, one for winter, and (somehow, the magic of I don't know but hope it's possible) procedurally transition between those set up ones. If an entity crosses a biome border, it would play that transition to switch those stages and apply it towards the season settings of the entered biome.

Since my idea is something HUGE, I would not expect this to be developed right away, but rather a vision of what could be possible some day in the future (I would definitely love to wait for its arrival!). I believe, with such a function, there could be so many, many benefits for creators and it would make the already beautiful landscapes even more stunning.
As I am no subscriber however, I cannot "demand" this, but maybe someone out there loves this idea - you are free to suggest it if you're holding the power to ask for it directly. Also, a very big Thank You to Adam, who opened up this suggestion corner for people like me, with a smaller budget, but still a huge love for PW products. I am so very happy that you are listening to people no matter how much they are able to spend, even if it gotta be set up a bit categorized, since - we all know - money doesn't grow on trees. A huge feature like this needs supporters, financially as well. I cannot provide that myself, but I have faith that some day I will be able to see PW release such an awesome feature. Maybe you already got something planned in that direction - who knows 😄

That's all for the main idea, I hope you all like it just as I would love to see something like this happen. Also thank you for your attention and time. Feel free to take your bits and pieces from this suggestion - I would really appreciate it!

Greetings,

xDonnervogelx

[Adam]

Super cool!