I want to make a game with some planets that can be viewed from space and from closer distance, like in rts games. I think i need a shader to apply a different texture to each single polygon of the sphere with a decent resolution, like 100 x 100 x face, without having to use a 10000x10000 pixel skin. I would also apply an effect that shows cities' lights on the darker face of the planet. I think that a shader could do this work, interpolating the two skins (night/day) in proportion of the lightning.
But i'm a newbie to shaders and i don't know how to do this...can anyone suggest anything? Thanks

.... nobody?

I excactly need the same thing for my spacegame. Well, guess im going to try to make that kind of shaderthingy, allthough im a big newbie in shaders too. Time to change that