Light?

The simplest lighting effect is to use either the add ink effect or just something drawn apropriately with an alpha channel to make it look as though its glowing.

There are a few ways to make the "black screen with light" revealing stuff effect"...I'm guessing the most optiized method is by using the surface object, but I'm not positive.

Has anyone done this yet with the surface object?

You don't need the surface extension. You just need HWA and layers, and it's very easy.

1.) Create layer(s) containing the game backgrounds, sprites, etc.
2.) Create a layer on top, and set the effect to "subtract". Add a white quick-backdrop object for total darkness, or a grey one for partial darkness.
3.) White now corresponds to darkness - any darker objects on the new layer will act as lights. For best results, you should use a circle which is black at the centre, and fades to transparent at the edges (using the alpha channel). You can use colors other than black to give colored lights.

Here, I made an example:
Please login to see this link.

Thats a great solution for those who only care if their game works on PC's and only with HWA. Hopefully the surface object will allow such a thing for flash based games as well as non-hwa.

HWA is a runtime for MMF2 that allows you to export applications that utilize directx 9, making graphics much faster and allowing for hardware rendered pixel shaders. Anything graphics related will be much faster, and you can write shaders in HLSL

Thats the simplest solution I have ever seen in mmf2. Even simpler than my "double screen size black box with a round cutout in the middle" thx for the example!

Quote from MuddyMole

Here, I made an example:
Please login to see this link.

Link doesn´t work (I know this is a looong time ago) but can you still send a working link for this example file? thanks

I had this file, but unfortunately my drives burned.
I'll try recovering these soon tho.

This link should work: Please login to see this link.