sliding masking effect

[ravrbrat]

hi everyone!

i'm trying to create this effect but cant seem to wrap my head around how i might get it done, hoping some of you might be able to answer it for me.

basically i have a horizontal menu bar, it's essentially a colored bar with words and icons on it. then on top of that, i have a light gray bar with the alpha down to about 25%. this creates the illusion of the menu bar being under a transparent overlay sort of thing.

what i want to do is to have a sliding "hole" sort of thing that would follow the user's mouse, allowing parts of the colored bar below to be seen in focus (without the transparent overlay on top) as the user mouses over the menu bar.

i have seen this effect done before, but cant remember where, and i dont know what to call it, so searching for a tutorial hasnt been really successful either.

could anyone help point me in the right direction? i'd be eternally grateful

[BSUC]

It sounds like you are looking for a scrolling movie clip tutorial that operates according to the mouse movement. There are some tuttorials on flashkit and also a good one on http://www.razormedia.co.uk/, but unfortunately it is down at the moment. try looking up scrolling movie clip as they will explain how to do it better than I can.

[ravrbrat]

thanks BSUC, i will try to have a look for that

[pimpjacksmack]

i think you can create a MC of your "hole" with 25% opacity, and then on the actions of the MC place this code..

onClipEvent (load) {
startDrag("instance name", true, -100, 200, 600, 200);
}

where the numbers are the constraining boxes. give me a minute and i'll post a .fla you can work with

[pimpjacksmack]

try this

http://www.chameleon-graphics.com/mask_startdrag.fla

[ravrbrat]

THANK YOU pimpjacksmack! that was really helpful, appreciate the .fla you posted!