Way to prevent material instantiation for fading alpha

Hello all.

I have made iterative changes to my game so that I make as few draw calls as possible. For example, I've been making texture atlases for one material to use different UV coords (instead of using texture offsets in the material itself).

There are times when, as far as I know, you cant get around using a separate material for some operations. For example. I have 2d planes in 3d space acting as GUI elements. I have made their textures into one atlas and using one material for them all. I would like these GUI elements to sequentially fade in their alpha values from 0 to 1 instead of have them all fade in at the same time. Doing this will force individual instantiations. Is there any way around this?

Thanks! Paul Next Beat Games. Stay tuned for debut of "Scratch Island"