Table of Contents

Class Light3D

Namespace
Godot
Assembly
GodotSharp.dll

Light3D is the abstract base class for light nodes. As it can't be instantiated, it shouldn't be used directly. Other types of light nodes inherit from it. Light3D contains the common variables and parameters used for lighting.

public class Light3D : VisualInstance3D, IDisposable
Inheritance
Light3D
Implements
Derived
Inherited Members

Properties

DistanceFadeBegin

The distance from the camera at which the light begins to fade away (in 3D units).

Note: Only effective for OmniLight3D and SpotLight3D.

public float DistanceFadeBegin { get; set; }

Property Value

float

DistanceFadeEnabled

If true, the light will smoothly fade away when far from the active Camera3D starting at DistanceFadeBegin. This acts as a form of level of detail (LOD). The light will fade out over DistanceFadeBegin + DistanceFadeLength, after which it will be culled and not sent to the shader at all. Use this to reduce the number of active lights in a scene and thus improve performance.

Note: Only effective for OmniLight3D and SpotLight3D.

public bool DistanceFadeEnabled { get; set; }

Property Value

bool

DistanceFadeLength

Distance over which the light and its shadow fades. The light's energy and shadow's opacity is progressively reduced over this distance and is completely invisible at the end.

Note: Only effective for OmniLight3D and SpotLight3D.

public float DistanceFadeLength { get; set; }

Property Value

float

DistanceFadeShadow

The distance from the camera at which the light's shadow cuts off (in 3D units). Set this to a value lower than DistanceFadeBegin + DistanceFadeLength to further improve performance, as shadow rendering is often more expensive than light rendering itself.

Note: Only effective for OmniLight3D and SpotLight3D, and only when ShadowEnabled is true.

public float DistanceFadeShadow { get; set; }

Property Value

float

EditorOnly

If true, the light only appears in the editor and will not be visible at runtime. If true, the light will never be baked in LightmapGI regardless of its LightBakeMode.

public bool EditorOnly { get; set; }

Property Value

bool

LightAngularDistance

The light's angular size in degrees. Increasing this will make shadows softer at greater distances (also called percentage-closer soft shadows, or PCSS). Only available for DirectionalLight3Ds. For reference, the Sun from the Earth is approximately 0.5. Increasing this value above 0.0 for lights with shadows enabled will have a noticeable performance cost due to PCSS.

Note: LightAngularDistance is not affected by Scale (the light's scale or its parent's scale).

Note: PCSS for directional lights is only supported in the Forward+ rendering method, not Mobile or Compatibility.

public float LightAngularDistance { get; set; }

Property Value

float

LightBakeMode

The light's bake mode. This will affect the global illumination techniques that have an effect on the light's rendering. See Light3D.BakeMode.

Note: Meshes' global illumination mode will also affect the global illumination rendering. See GIMode.

public Light3D.BakeMode LightBakeMode { get; set; }

Property Value

Light3D.BakeMode

LightColor

The light's color. An overbright color can be used to achieve a result equivalent to increasing the light's LightEnergy.

public Color LightColor { get; set; }

Property Value

Color

LightCullMask

The light will affect objects in the selected layers.

public uint LightCullMask { get; set; }

Property Value

uint

LightEnergy

The light's strength multiplier (this is not a physical unit). For OmniLight3D and SpotLight3D, changing this value will only change the light color's intensity, not the light's radius.

public float LightEnergy { get; set; }

Property Value

float

LightIndirectEnergy

Secondary multiplier used with indirect light (light bounces). Used with VoxelGI and SDFGI (see SdfgiEnabled).

Note: This property is ignored if LightEnergy is equal to 0.0, as the light won't be present at all in the GI shader.

public float LightIndirectEnergy { get; set; }

Property Value

float

LightIntensityLumens

Used by positional lights (OmniLight3D and SpotLight3D) when ProjectSettings.rendering/lights_and_shadows/use_physical_light_units is true. Sets the intensity of the light source measured in Lumens. Lumens are a measure of luminous flux, which is the total amount of visible light emitted by a light source per unit of time.

For SpotLight3Ds, we assume that the area outside the visible cone is surrounded by a perfect light absorbing material. Accordingly, the apparent brightness of the cone area does not change as the cone increases and decreases in size.

A typical household lightbulb can range from around 600 lumens to 1,200 lumens, a candle is about 13 lumens, while a streetlight can be approximately 60,000 lumens.

public float LightIntensityLumens { get; set; }

Property Value

float

LightIntensityLux

Used by DirectionalLight3Ds when ProjectSettings.rendering/lights_and_shadows/use_physical_light_units is true. Sets the intensity of the light source measured in Lux. Lux is a measure of luminous flux per unit area, it is equal to one lumen per square meter. Lux is the measure of how much light hits a surface at a given time.

On a clear sunny day a surface in direct sunlight may be approximately 100,000 lux, a typical room in a home may be approximately 50 lux, while the moonlit ground may be approximately 0.1 lux.

public float LightIntensityLux { get; set; }

Property Value

float

LightNegative

If true, the light's effect is reversed, darkening areas and casting bright shadows.

public bool LightNegative { get; set; }

Property Value

bool

LightProjector

Texture2D projected by light. ShadowEnabled must be on for the projector to work. Light projectors make the light appear as if it is shining through a colored but transparent object, almost like light shining through stained-glass.

Note: Unlike BaseMaterial3D whose filter mode can be adjusted on a per-material basis, the filter mode for light projector textures is set globally with ProjectSettings.rendering/textures/light_projectors/filter.

Note: Light projector textures are only supported in the Forward+ and Mobile rendering methods, not Compatibility.

public Texture2D LightProjector { get; set; }

Property Value

Texture2D

LightSize

The size of the light in Godot units. Only available for OmniLight3Ds and SpotLight3Ds. Increasing this value will make the light fade out slower and shadows appear blurrier (also called percentage-closer soft shadows, or PCSS). This can be used to simulate area lights to an extent. Increasing this value above 0.0 for lights with shadows enabled will have a noticeable performance cost due to PCSS.

Note: LightSize is not affected by Scale (the light's scale or its parent's scale).

Note: PCSS for positional lights is only supported in the Forward+ and Mobile rendering methods, not Compatibility.

public float LightSize { get; set; }

Property Value

float

LightSpecular

The intensity of the specular blob in objects affected by the light. At 0, the light becomes a pure diffuse light. When not baking emission, this can be used to avoid unrealistic reflections when placing lights above an emissive surface.

public float LightSpecular { get; set; }

Property Value

float

LightTemperature

Sets the color temperature of the light source, measured in Kelvin. This is used to calculate a correlated color temperature which tints the LightColor.

The sun on a cloudy day is approximately 6500 Kelvin, on a clear day it is between 5500 to 6000 Kelvin, and on a clear day at sunrise or sunset it ranges to around 1850 Kelvin.

public float LightTemperature { get; set; }

Property Value

float

LightVolumetricFogEnergy

Secondary multiplier multiplied with LightEnergy then used with the Environment's volumetric fog (if enabled). If set to 0.0, computing volumetric fog will be skipped for this light, which can improve performance for large amounts of lights when volumetric fog is enabled.

Note: To prevent short-lived dynamic light effects from poorly interacting with volumetric fog, lights used in those effects should have LightVolumetricFogEnergy set to 0.0 unless VolumetricFogTemporalReprojectionEnabled is disabled (or unless the reprojection amount is significantly lowered).

public float LightVolumetricFogEnergy { get; set; }

Property Value

float

ShadowBias

Used to adjust shadow appearance. Too small a value results in self-shadowing ("shadow acne"), while too large a value causes shadows to separate from casters ("peter-panning"). Adjust as needed.

public float ShadowBias { get; set; }

Property Value

float

ShadowBlur

Blurs the edges of the shadow. Can be used to hide pixel artifacts in low-resolution shadow maps. A high value can impact performance, make shadows appear grainy and can cause other unwanted artifacts. Try to keep as near default as possible.

public float ShadowBlur { get; set; }

Property Value

float

ShadowEnabled

If true, the light will cast real-time shadows. This has a significant performance cost. Only enable shadow rendering when it makes a noticeable difference in the scene's appearance, and consider using DistanceFadeEnabled to hide the light when far away from the Camera3D.

public bool ShadowEnabled { get; set; }

Property Value

bool

ShadowNormalBias

Offsets the lookup into the shadow map by the object's normal. This can be used to reduce self-shadowing artifacts without using ShadowBias. In practice, this value should be tweaked along with ShadowBias to reduce artifacts as much as possible.

public float ShadowNormalBias { get; set; }

Property Value

float

ShadowOpacity

The opacity to use when rendering the light's shadow map. Values lower than 1.0 make the light appear through shadows. This can be used to fake global illumination at a low performance cost.

public float ShadowOpacity { get; set; }

Property Value

float

ShadowReverseCullFace

If true, reverses the backface culling of the mesh. This can be useful when you have a flat mesh that has a light behind it. If you need to cast a shadow on both sides of the mesh, set the mesh to use double-sided shadows with DoubleSided.

public bool ShadowReverseCullFace { get; set; }

Property Value

bool

ShadowTransmittanceBias 

public float ShadowTransmittanceBias { get; set; }

Property Value

float

Methods

GetCorrelatedColor()

Returns the Color of an idealized blackbody at the given LightTemperature. This value is calculated internally based on the LightTemperature. This Color is multiplied by LightColor before being sent to the RenderingServer.

public Color GetCorrelatedColor()

Returns

Color

HasGodotClassMethod(in godot_string_name)

Check if the type contains a method with the given name. This method is used by Godot to check if a method exists before invoking it. Do not call or override this method.

protected override bool HasGodotClassMethod(in godot_string_name method)

Parameters

method godot_string_name

Name of the method to check for.

Returns

bool

HasGodotClassSignal(in godot_string_name)

Check if the type contains a signal with the given name. This method is used by Godot to check if a signal exists before raising it. Do not call or override this method.

protected override bool HasGodotClassSignal(in godot_string_name signal)

Parameters

signal godot_string_name

Name of the signal to check for.

Returns

bool

InvokeGodotClassMethod(in godot_string_name, NativeVariantPtrArgs, out godot_variant)

Invokes the method with the given name, using the given arguments. This method is used by Godot to invoke methods from the engine side. Do not call or override this method.

protected override bool InvokeGodotClassMethod(in godot_string_name method, NativeVariantPtrArgs args, out godot_variant ret)

Parameters

method godot_string_name

Name of the method to invoke.

args NativeVariantPtrArgs

Arguments to use with the invoked method.

ret godot_variant

Value returned by the invoked method.

Returns

bool
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