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2D point lights

Free packv3.0.0-72DLook

Coloured light for top-down and side-on 2D games: point lights and spot cones over an ambient tint, with candle flicker and hard or soft shadows thrown by the level's walls. Lights are ordinary objects in the game, and layers such as fog of war can stay dark under a torch.

This is a Free pack. Every phaser.io account can use it in their games.

Released October 14, 2026 · updated October 20, 2026

2D point lights: a screenshot of its demo
A note about these graphics

Expansion packs don't come with graphics. This screenshot is one way of drawing what the pack does, made for its demo: none of the sprites, tiles or backgrounds in it are in the pack.

That's by design. A pack is a game's logic, mechanics and effects, and it works with whatever art you give it. Some packs draw effects, backdrops or 3D scenes of their own, but none carries a game's sprites.

So the look is yours. Make the art on phaser.io, bring your own, or let your agent draw it in code: the same pack can look like anything.

The pack

lighting2d

function lighting2d(opts: Lighting2dOptions = {}): Pack<{ lights: Lighting2dApi }, {}, { light: LightData }>

The 2D lighting pack: additive point and spot lights with falloff, flicker, hard or soft shadows off occluders, an over/under layer per light, and an ambient the scene is multiplied down to. Lights are roster objects with a light sub-object. Each light is a fan of triangles (its visibility polygon when it casts shadows, a quad when it does not) with per-pixel falloff in the fragment stage, additive so colors mix. Passes: lighting-under before sprites (it clears the target's alpha, so the sprites leave their coverage in it), and lighting after them and before sprites-over, post and screen: the ambient (or, modulating, the light map's multiply and tint), the under lights where no sprite covers the floor, alpha back to 1, then the over lights. A HUD is never lit, nor a world layer above unlitAbove. A lighting-2d.follow simulate step pins following lights.

Types

LightData

interface LightData

The light sub-object on a light's handle: the pack's columns, live. Numbers are world units unless said.

  • type: number — 0 point, 1 spot. Set by point()/spot().
  • radius: number — Reach; the falloff reaches 0 here. Point default 240, spot 360.
  • color: string — CSS hex; #rgb, #rrggbb or #rrggbbaa (alpha ignored). Default '#ffffff'.
  • intensity: number — Peak brightness; 1 plain, above 1 over-brightens. Default 1.
  • falloff: number — Falloff exponent: 1 is linear, 2 a softer core, higher tighter; clamped to at least 0.25. Default 2.
  • dir: number — Spot facing, radians (spot only). Default 0.
  • cone: number — Spot full cone angle, radians (spot only). Default 0.9.
  • flicker: number — Flicker amount 0..1 (candles, torches); 0 steady. Default 0.
  • flickerSpeed: number — Flicker speed multiplier. Default 1.
  • phase: number — Per-light flicker phase so many flames do not sync. Default 0.
  • layer: number — WHEN the light is drawn, not which layers it lights. 0 'over': after the lit world layers, so it brightens every sprite under it (a street lamp). 1 'under': beneath every sprite, on the backdrop, so opaque sprites hide it and translucent ones show it through (a glow under the ball); the ambient does not dim it (on a transparent background it does). Default 0. Keep a world layer out of the light with the pack's unlitAbove.
  • shadows: number — 1: cast shadows off game.lights.occluders (a visibility fan per light, per frame). 0: a cheap radial glow — thousands are affordable. Default 0.
  • softness: number — Penumbra size when shadows is on: the light is sampled as a disc of this radius (12 samples), so edges go soft; 0 razor-hard. Default 6.
  • on: number — 1 lit, 0 skipped that frame. Default 1.

LightHandle

type LightHandle = Handle & { light: LightData }

A light is a roster handle with a light sub-object.

Lighting2dApi

interface Lighting2dApi

game.lights.

  • point(o?: PointOptions): LightHandle — Spawn a point light (owner 'lighting-2d', tag 'light', invisible) and return its handle.
  • spot(o?: SpotOptions): LightHandle — Spawn a spot light (a cone) and return its handle.
  • ambient(color: string): void — The color the scene is multiplied down to where no light reaches, CSS hex: '#ffffff' is no darkening, '#000000' black unlit. Scene-scoped: the previous ambient returns on exit.
  • modulate(tint?: number | false): void — Light the way a lamp lights a room. The 'over' lights MULTIPLY the lit world layers instead of adding to them: scene × (ambient + (1 − ambient) × the lights' summed brightness, capped at 1), so what a light falls on shows its own color and texture, exactly its own under a full light, and what it misses sinks to the ambient. The lights' colors are then added on top at tint (0..1, default 0.3) for their warmth; 0 adds none. modulate(false) returns to the default, the additive glow: the scene multiplied down to the ambient and the lights' color added over it, which over a dark ambient reads as a haze. Scene-scoped like ambient: the previous mode returns on exit. The target's alpha is untouched. 'under' lights stay a glow on the floor; the world layers above unlitAbove stay unlit.
  • readonly modulating: number | null — The light mode in force: the tint while modulating, null for the additive glow.
  • readonly occluders: Visibility2d — The walls shadowed lights cast against. Add rects, polys, segments; move them by mutating. Bounds are set to the view each frame.
  • readonly count: number — Live lights, on or off.
  • readonly visible: number — Lights drawn last frame after view culling.
  • readonly visibleShadow: number — Of those, how many cast shadows (the expensive ones).
  • readonly unlitAbove: LayerName | null — The manifest's unlitAbove: the last world layer lighting touches, or null when it touches them all.
  • readonly floor: LayerName | null — The manifest's floor: the last world layer under lights light, or null when only the backdrop is floor.

Lighting2dOptions

interface Lighting2dOptions

Manifest options.

  • ambient?: string — The starting ambient, CSS hex. Default '#ffffff' (no darkening until ambient() is called).
  • modulate?: number — Start modulating at this tint (0..1), as modulate(tint) would. Default: none, the additive glow.
  • unlitAbove?: LayerName — The last 2D world layer lighting touches. It and the layers below it are dimmed to the ambient and lit; every world layer above it (and world-screen's underlay, if it sits above it) is drawn after the lighting, exactly as authored: fog of war, a darkness mask, a not-seen-yet overlay, labels in the world. Default: none, every world layer is lit. Needs a renderer with a sprites-over pass (render-webgpu 3.0.0-2, render-webgl2 3.0.0-3 or later).
  • floor?: LayerName — The last 2D world layer that is floor to the under lights: they light it and the layers below it, and the sprites in the layers above it hide them. For a floor made of sprites (tiles, flagstones). Default: none, only the backdrop is floor and every sprite hides an under light. At or below unlitAbove. Needs a renderer that lists the 'world-floor' feature (render-webgpu 3.0.0-3, render-webgl2 3.0.0-5 or later).

PointOptions

interface PointOptions

What point() takes.

  • x?: number — World x; default follow's x, else 0.
  • y?: number — World y; default follow's y, else 0.
  • radius?: number — Reach in world units. Point default 240, spot 360.
  • color?: string — CSS hex. Default '#ffffff'.
  • intensity?: number — Peak brightness. Default 1.
  • falloff?: number — Falloff exponent, 1 linear, higher tighter. Default 2.
  • flicker?: number — Flicker amount 0..1. Default 0.
  • flickerSpeed?: number — Flicker speed multiplier. Default 1.
  • phase?: number — Flicker phase. Default 0.
  • layer?: 'over' | 'under' — 'over' (default) is drawn after the lit world layers and brightens their sprites; 'under' lights the backdrop beneath every sprite, undimmed by the ambient. Neither keeps a layer unlit: that is the pack's unlitAbove.
  • shadows?: boolean — Cast shadows off the occluders. Default false.
  • softness?: number — Penumbra radius in world units when shadows is on; 0 hard. Default 6.
  • follow?: Handle — Keep the light on this object each step; the light is killed when the object dies.

SpotOptions

interface SpotOptions extends PointOptions

What spot() takes: a point light with a cone.

  • dir?: number — Facing, radians. Default 0 (along +x).
  • cone?: number — Full cone angle, radians. Default 0.9.