Lerp the alpha value of a color

Question

I want to change the alpha value (transparency) of a color back and forth:

private void Awake()
{
    material =  gameObject.GetComponent<Renderer>().material;   
    oColor   = material.color; // the alpha here is 0
    nColor   = material.color;
    nColor.a = 255f;
}
private void Update()
{
    material.color = Color.Lerp(oColor, nColor, Mathf.PingPong(Time.time, 1));
}

This doesn't work, the color instantly changes to white, and it keeps blinking the original color. I'm following this.

Answer 1

In fact the alpha color of the Material goes from 0 to 255, however these values in C# are translated from 0 to 1, making 1 equal to 255. This is a script I made a while ago, maybe you can use it:

public class Blink : MonoBehaviour 
{
    public Material m;
    private Color c;
    private float a = .5f;
    private bool goingUp;

    private void Start()
    {
        c = m.color;
        goingUp = true;
    }
    private void Update()
    {
        c.a = goingUp ? .03f + c.a : c.a - .03f;

        if (c.a >= 1f) 
            goingUp = false;
        else if (c.a <= 00)
            goingUp = true;

        m.color = c;
    }
}