Fog of War/Illuminate Dark Area

Mmk soo lets say that i have a frame that is comepletely black (i.e dark).

How would I make it so that a "circle of light" appears around an object/mouse and everything within this circle of light is no longer hidden under the darkness (aka black)

I have done something similar . Basically I made a large black active object . Make it so it would take up the entire visable play area ( doesn't need to be the whole frame. Then make a transparent hole in the center . Then just have it always center around your mouse/active. This just allows you to see inside the "hole".

You could always center another object in the center with transparency too for some kind of effect .

Might be a better way bit worked for me.

Mmk thanks Redsquirrel. It works!

I may have another question, but i'll work on it before i ask.

Ok here is my new Question:

Let's say i have 5 different areas. Areas that have been unlocked, they can see without blackness. In the locked areas, Let's say one an locked area i want to bring their attention to something about the area. This area (which is shrouded in blackness) needs to have a "window to see through" which could be what you suggested above. However I do not want this darnkess to be in the unlocked area.

Follow along so far?

So essentially my question is this:
I want to use your way, however i only want to do it in certain sections of the map. How do i acheive this while still having light in some areas of the map? I may be everthing this too much but i can't quite wrap my head around it yet.

I woudlnt use the active object approach, that will need a big image for large resolutions and you can create much nicer effects using HWA effects.
I dont play with them much but there are examples floating which creates much nicer and smoother blends (I think its the AND effect)

There's actually an example iirc

http://www.clickteam.com/epicenter/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=194709#Post1947 09

I think that's overkill for what he wants, and its still too slow to use in an actual game.

HWA and the "Subtract" effect are the way to go (don't use additive/semi-transparency effects, or the big-black-active-with-a-hole method).

A couple of examples:

http://cid-b1e7ee094271bbda.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/LightsEg.mfa

http://cid-b1e7ee094271bbda.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/fow.mfa

MuddyMole. I would like to see the fow example as a scrolling example.

Thanks

Marv

I don't see any code for MuddyMoles, but it's the exact thing i want. How does the LightsEg. work? I see that the transparency effect is all in the image. However i painted the image purple and it sees the image as if its in a green filter. Is it all in the image? Also which part of the frame is needed to be in HWA?

Never mind MuddyMole...I got it.

Marv