---
title: "2D point lights: API"
package: "@phaser-ae/lighting-2d"
tier: Free
version: 3.0.0-7
released: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-20
description: "Coloured point and spot lights for 2D games over a dark ambient, with flicker, hard or soft shadows from your walls, lamp-light shading and layers the light never touches."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/lighting-2d/api
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# 2D point lights: API

`@phaser-ae/lighting-2d` — Point lights and spot cones over an ambient tint, with candle flicker and hard or soft wall shadows. Lights are roster objects the snapshot and editor see.

## The pack

### `lighting2d`

```ts
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`

```ts
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`

```ts
type LightHandle = Handle & { light: LightData }
```

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

### `Lighting2dApi`

```ts
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`

```ts
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`

```ts
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`

```ts
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.

---

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