This video walks you through creating a basic shader that can fade, and tint the color of the rendered object. It also demonstrates how to animate the texture coords from within render monkey.
I have also included the render monkey project in the zip. I have also modified the project slightly and have added a better solution to the effect shown in the video. This new effect called "TexturedFixed" uses two render passes. The first render pass renders the back facing polys, and the second render pass renders the front facing polys.
Also my blog does not seem to be getting displayed on my main web site page. I am currently trying to fix this.
ATI Render monkey basics