# Spot lights

<span class="label label-doc-level">Beginner</span>
<span class="label label-doc-audience">Designer</span>
<span class="label label-doc-audience">Artist</span>

**Spot lights** produce a cone of light in a specific direction. They're useful for simulating light from objects such as lampposts and flashlights. They cast shadows. You can control them with scripts or animation to create dramatic lighting effects.

![media/SpotLightOverview.png](media/SpotLightOverview.png) 

The Scene Editor shows the position of the spot light with the following icon:

![media/SpotLight.png](media/SpotLight.png) 

Once selected, the gizmo of the spot light displays its main direction, range and the outer cone:

![media/SpotLightSelected.png](media/SpotLightSelected.png) 

## Properties

![media/SpotLightProperties.png](media/SpotLightProperties.png)

| Property            | Description
| ------------------- | -----------
| Color               | The color of the light (RGB)  
| Range               | The range in [world units](../../game-studio/world-units.md). Beyond the this range, the light doesn't affect models.
| Angle Inner         | The inner angle of the spot cone where the light intensity influence is at one
| Angle Outer         | The outer angle of the spot cone where the light intensity influence is zero
| Shadows             | <p><br> Cast shadows</p></br><p><br>**Filter**: Produces soft shadows instead of hard shadows via PCF (Percentage Closer Filtering) </p></br> <p><br>**Size**: The size of texture to use for shadowing mapping. Larger textures produce better shadows edges, but are much more costly. For more information, see [Shadows](shadows.md)</p></br> <p><br>For spot lights, the default value is **medium**, as a spot light has usually a medium visual impact</p></br>  
| Bias Parameters     | <p><br>These parameters are used to avoid some artifacts of the shadow map technique.</p></br> <p><br>**Depth Bias:** The amount of depth to add to the sampling depth to avoid shadow acne </p></br> <p><br>**Normal Offset Scale**: A factor multiplied by the depth bias toward the normal</p></br> 
| Intensity           | The intensity of the light. The color is multiplied by this value before being sent to the shader. Note: negative values produce darkness and have unpredictable effects
Culling Mask          | Defines which entity groups are affected by this light. By default, all groups are affected

## See also

* [Add a light](add-a-light.md)
* [Point lights](point-lights.md)
* [Ambient lights](ambient-lights.md)
* [Directional lights](directional-lights.md)
* [Light shafts](light-shafts.md)
* [Skybox lights](skybox-lights.md)
* [Light probes](light-probes.md)
* [Shadows](shadows.md)