Outline/glow effect for 2D sprite

Hi, I'm looking for outline/glow effect, which I can apply to 2D sprite. I don't care about 3D. Something pretty simple, because it has to be efficient on mobile devices. I know I can make second sprite with outline made in any graphical editor, but I have a lot of spritesheets, so I think shader will be better option. I only found somewhere extension or something, but it was said it doesn't work with sprites (3d crap only). I'm also aware that unity pro has that feature, but it's not worth buying to just get this one I'm looking for something free, efficient and simple.

 

Someone achieved this and wants to share ?

 

Things are not simple, efficient and free at the same time.
In your case, you have to paint all sprites individually.

 

What if in code I'd make outlines of all frames, add them as childs and just hide/show them?

 

Trying wouldnt harm, you could even learn new things.

 

Easy Sprites 2D can outline your sprite

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/17675

 

@tropicalgames I think that the shader approach is not efficient.
I would embed the outline in sprites themselves.

 

i know this is an old thread, but there is this: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#!/content/109669

 

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/shaders/2d-filters-75679

 

Just to throw in a open source repo as well: https://github.com/keijiro/SpriteOutlineFx

 

If anyone doesn't want to go the shader way, there's this:
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/slug/146082

This outliner creates an outline texture and attaches it as a child object of the parent sprite renderer.
It can also recursively outline the entire hierarchy and can be used for UI Images as well.

 

This is what I was looking for when I found this thread. Simple, open source, and easy to adapt. Basically just uses the Sobel edge detection algorithm on the alpha channel of the texture in a shader. I am going to use this. I will eventually figure out if I can make it outline a "compound object" where there are multiple sprites. I think I can either do this by first drawing all the component sprites to a buffer, and then running the sobel algorithm on that, or I can run this shader before drawing the sprites, so that it will be "behind" the sprites and only the outermost outline will appear.

 

Did you ever get this work with multiple sprites?

 

I discovered a free, efficient, and simple way to highlight a sprite, with no addons required:

1) when you are designing your character, create it slightly brighter (glowing state)
-if it is a premade sprite, you can use third-party software to do this
2) use the SpriteRenderer color feature to change the sprite into its original shade, and tweak it to whatever you want
-for me its (210, 210, 255)
3) use the SpriteRenderer object to access the color feature

Note: While this method acts similarly to just using two different images, It can be modified with loops to create an animated glow effect, or neatly wrap multiple glow states into a list (List<Color>). It is simply an alternative.

Code (CSharp):

1. //Tweak the value to whatever fits your sprite
2. private static readonly Color baseColor = new Color(210, 210, 255);
3. private static readonly Color highlightColor = new Color(255, 255, 255);
4.  
5. //Should be different function for each type of sprite
6. public void makeHighlighted(GameObject gameObject) {
7.         gameObject.GetComponent<SpriteRenderer>().color = baseColor;
8. }

 

oul right!

 

¨
This is just what the doctor ordered, works great for built-in pipeline.

 

here's a good one too
https://github.com/wlgys8/Sprites-Outline