XNA a Simple 2D Point Light

Question

I want to make a 2D Point Light in XNA, I was able to find some helpful information but it is too advance for me, since i know nothing about Shaders

http://www.soolstyle.com/2010/02/15/2d-deferred-lightning

So my best aproximation is use a texture and use alpha blending, but im not happy with this result.

So I was wondering, what is the most simple method to make a simple 2d point light? I'd rather code examples.

Answer 1

Well I'm afraid you are going to have to learn about Shaders. Catalin's XNA Blog is an excellent place to start and has a great tutorial on using them for lighting effects.

Shader Overview

Smooth Shadow Tutorial

Answer 2

If you want something a little easier, without having to know about everything going on under the hood, I've heard that Krypton is a pretty good 2D lighting engine for XNA.

Alternatively, there's the blog posts from Catalin Zima (here and here) as well as a pretty enlightening (minor pun intended) thread on the subject here.

Lastly, although it's not free for commercial use, the Sunburn Game Engine has support for 2D lighting, among many other things.

Otherwise, you're probably going to have to get your hands dirty and learn the shaders if you want to implement it yourself.