Java Mouse “Flashlight” effect?

Question

I\'m coding a simple 2D maze game where you go through many rooms. I want to make it a bit challenging by limiting the view of the player. At first I thought of replacing th

Answer 1

What you are looking for is more commonly known as a "Spotlight" effect. You will need to use a JLayer, as this tutorial explains.

Here is the code excerpt from the tutorial:

class SpotlightLayerUI extends LayerUI {
  private boolean mActive;
  private int mX, mY;

  @Override
  public void installUI(JComponent c) {
    super.installUI(c);
    JLayer jlayer = (JLayer)c;
    jlayer.setLayerEventMask(
      AWTEvent.MOUSE_EVENT_MASK |
      AWTEvent.MOUSE_MOTION_EVENT_MASK
    );
  }

  @Override
  public void uninstallUI(JComponent c) {
    JLayer jlayer = (JLayer)c;
    jlayer.setLayerEventMask(0);
    super.uninstallUI(c);
  }

  @Override
  public void paint (Graphics g, JComponent c) {
    Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D)g.create();

    // Paint the view.
    super.paint (g2, c);

    if (mActive) {
      // Create a radial gradient, transparent in the middle.
      java.awt.geom.Point2D center = new java.awt.geom.Point2D.Float(mX, mY);
      float radius = 72;
      float[] dist = {0.0f, 1.0f};
      Color[] colors = {new Color(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f), Color.BLACK};
      RadialGradientPaint p =
          new RadialGradientPaint(center, radius, dist, colors);
      g2.setPaint(p);
      g2.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(
          AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER, .6f));
      g2.fillRect(0, 0, c.getWidth(), c.getHeight());
    }

    g2.dispose();
  }

  @Override
  protected void processMouseEvent(MouseEvent e, JLayer l) {
    if (e.getID() == MouseEvent.MOUSE_ENTERED) mActive = true;
    if (e.getID() == MouseEvent.MOUSE_EXITED) mActive = false;
    l.repaint();
  }

  @Override
  protected void processMouseMotionEvent(MouseEvent e, JLayer l) {
    Point p = SwingUtilities.convertPoint(e.getComponent(), e.getPoint(), l);
    mX = p.x;
    mY = p.y;
    l.repaint();
  }
}

I suggest reading the entire tutorial on Swing so you understand how listeners work and basically how this entire code works.