Flash a 2d sprite to white?

Gonna try my luck on these boards.

I've made a 2d game (but on an older unity 4.2.1f)

Does anyone know of a shader that can change a 2d sprite texture to white? The default has 255 values just giving you the regular color. Surely their has to be some way to "bloom" out the texture to white through the shader?

I've seen plenty of 2d games do this very trick, and theonly way I can think of doing them is to have a "white" version of every texture I want to possibly flash, which seems like over kill.

help!

 

1. blow out vertex colour by multiplying rgb in vertex shader by whichever amount you want to flash. You could simply multiply it by twice in vert shader then just halve the input vertex colour to compensate. Then to flash the sprite, you go from 0.5 rgb to 1.0 rgb in sprite renderer (or whatever middleware).

or

2. overlay the same sprite - just draw it again, same anim frame but new shader which only returns white + alpha in frag. Use input vertex alpha to fade the flash.

 

Sorry I need a trick that works with mobile shaders.

I noticed that the default particles alpha blend has an ability to slightly overbright the texture, (color value stars at 130,130,130) but it's been ripped out of the mobile version. I've been trying to tinker myself with making a mobile shader myself, but i've never written one before and havn't a clue what it is I'm doing.

 

The second one would work without having to mess much with shaders.

You could also switch textures when you want it to flash. Duplicate the sprite texture, fill it with white and when you want it to flash, swap the sprite texture with a completely white version and then back again.

 

Thanks for your help on this! I've asked in a bunch of places and your the first and only response!

 

You can duplicate Sprites/Default shader and make it output white instead of the actual RGB values from the texture. Alpha should still come from the texture in order to keep the original shape of the sprite. Then swap the material of the SpriteRenderer when flashing.
Or even make one material capable of switching logic.

Will work on mobile.

 

Thanks Tomas! Any chance we could get a default shader that does the same trick? I'd wager most mobile 2d games would want to express damage or hits taken with a white flash.