Making a gameobject solid white (like shmup damage)

My game is 2.5D so my characters are planes with pre-rendered graphics. Is there a way to make my current frame solid white while retaining the alpha? This is a popular technique in shmups where, when you hit an enemy, they turn white momentarily but retain the alpha. I don't want to have to load an entire set of images that are solid white, so I'm wondering if there's a way to do it via scripting.

 

Sure, swap the renderer's sharedMaterial for another for the duration of the flash, then restore the original sharedMaterial.

 

But what kind of material would create this effect?

 

A white material.

 

other options
set material color with script, like tint, if your shader has it.
if thats not bright enough, customize shader to make it whiter * 2, or to have it lerp between current color and white by adjusting lerp from 0 to 1 in script..