Multiple "spotlights" that follow player/enemies

[rjungemann]

Hey all,

 

I would like to have my game completely blacked out, except for masked out areas around each player and enemy, to simulate being in pitch blackness.

 

I tried using a Graphics object, but it only works for the first primitive drawn to the screen (so I would only be able to do it around the first entity), and it would not allow for soft edges.

 

BitmapData would get expensive because I would need to re-render the BitmapData each frame and it would have to get transferred to a WebGL buffer every frame, which I would imagine would impair performance.

 

Is this possible? Even just a broad idea of how something like this could be achieved would be helpful.
 

Attached is a mockup of the effect I hope to achieve.

 

Thanks, I really appreciate it!

[lewster32]

This example is exactly what you'll need: http://gamemechanicexplorer.com/#lighting-3

 

For what it's worth your guess that you'd have to update BitmapData each frame is pretty much correct but the performance cost isn't too great.

[rjungemann]

Amazing! Thanks for sharing that link, that's exactly what I'm looking for!