WorldPos texture blend

What I am trying to achieve is a blend between a "map" texture and the main texture based on "explored" areas the player has been (updating as they move around).

I can think of a way to do this by updating an alpha texture (with SetPixel) but I have read that this approach is not very good.

I wondered if there is a way to do this directly in a shader?

I have a simple shader (based on the "progress bar" shader mentioned in the Unite presentation).

It takes two textures, a radius and an origin in world space. It then does a circular blend from the origin. This is great for one point, but is there a way that I can pass multiple points in?

Or is there another approach?

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

 

Vertex colors sound like a much better match, to me. But it depends on how you reveal. If you can model the blend, then it's a good method. The map in Toe Jam and Earl, the best map of all time, of course, would work great with a method like that, but I think that it would be even better just to delete vertices from a mesh, and use no blending.

 

Thanks Jessy,

I'll look into how to use vertex colors. I think I saw a post about them earlier, I'll search it out.

 

Ok,

Just testing this out with a simple plane, (100x100 vertex).

That works, however, it looks quite "pixelated". Would that be purely from the number of vertices I used or could I modify the shader to make a smoother result? The one I am using at the moment just does a lerp between two textures based on vertex color.

Also the approach I took for setting the vertex colors (iterating through all the vertices and seeing if they are within a given distance from a point) is pretty slow. Does anyone have advice for "fast" ways to find vertices in an area?