2D Top Down SmokeBomb

Hello everyone,

I am currently enrolled in a 2d Games Programming Course and I am trying to create a smoke bomb that will do the following:

1: Reveal Lasers - lasers will be a simple red line between 2 points when overlapping with the smoke animation and invisible otherwise.

I know I can disable the sprite renderer to make things visible or invisible but I was wondering if there was some way to selectively activate a sprite where (and only where) it overlaps with an animation or circle collider. Perhaps using some sort of mask or something?

2: Hide the player from enemies - this one is a bit easier I think. I mainly just want to know about revealing the laser under the smoke.

Thanks in advance!