Fog of War effect in iOS?

[Sumo]

Is it possible to create a fog of war effect in iOS? Basically I'm making an RTS game and I would like the unexplored areas blacked out until you explore them. Now if I wasn't using iOS I would use the surface object. I know there's the really awful way of creating a bunch of black actives and destroying them but that would take up way too much memory and it would be totally inefficient. Anyone have a work around?

[Keith]

Check out the alpha channel example here and leverage the approach for the flashlight:

http://www.castles-of-britain.com/mmfexamples-a.htm

[Sumo]

Thanks for the response however that used the "add" effect and that's not supported in iOS. Also the fog would have to disappear after it's been uncovered. I'll keep looking for something, but hopefully there can be a way.

[Diablohead]

The most simple way to make a fog of war IMO is using active tiles over the screen, just delete the tile as you enter it or get close to it.

This might take 96 active squares or something high but it seems to be the most straight forward method.

[SolarB]

Hi Sumo, I remember you asking this question on TDC a while back in this thread (http://www.create-games.com/forum_post.asp?id=293563). Have you tested the method that involves actives that set on/off using values stored in an array? That way you only need however many actives that fit into your iOS resolution. I don't think fastlooping through these should be a problem (ForEach is out on iOS too!) and the hardware acceleration of iOS should be able to take care of displaying the required amount of actives.

Also 'add' effect does (should) work in iOS.

[Sumo]

I'll be honest I don't remember posting on that thread at all, but I guess I did xD I check it out and test some stuff a bit to see if i can get it to work. Thanks.