Using an Atlas texture with nodes

Hello, my fellow Blender artisans!

I had a small idea and would like to implement it. But I’m not very good with nodes! I guess I need to start studying it.

What I have is a 512/512 with 4X4 mini textures. I want that when the plane(halo) orients on its x axys, it’s UV displaces in the X axys and the same for Z rotation to Y UV displacement.
The idea is to have a different texture as the object turns. This is for clouds, rocks or any other distant object. Or as a wanna-be impostor.
If anyone is good with nodes, plesae give me a hand, if there’s a better solution (I could use python), pliz share it too!
I’ll be posting my progress here!

Thank you for reading!

Well, I completely failed so far. But I got a small part of it working…Impostor.blend (1.65 MB)
I bet nodes would do a better work!

What is the overall effect you’re trying to achieve?

I want to have fake volumetrics.
For instance, I can render n sides of a “volume” cloud into a single text UV’s. So that when facing one side, a plane will render a proper texture. Only Normal and alpha are really required, but I could use for asteroid fields, trees, or any other distant object in a scene!

Interesting idea, I’ll try to remember to give it a shot when I get home tonight.

Thank you Cap!