Shaders question, Shield hit effect

Any general pointers on how to go about creating a shield effect? I'm fine with having to learn something about how to code shaders, but knowing which shader info i should look at would be nice.

One more additional side question. Can I use shaders to make an effect somewhat independent of the mesh (for a CONVEX mesh collider)

Because i'm using a mesh collider its very basic. 8 sided capsule (with minimal spherical ends) However i'd like the shield effect to look smoother than the collider does (since it's minimal) Is it possible to create a more spherical look to the effect than the attached collider? Without of course hours of custom coding I mean. (basically it'd be really nice if the shaders had a method i just called that smoothed the effect)

I'm using a convex mesh collider (instead of compound primitives) because the shield is being generated around a ship that can be any shape whatsoever. I can't use boxes because they aren't smooth enough and capsules, spheres can be deformed into elliptical shapes.