user: How do I use Spot Light in Blender? Include parameters, examples, warnings and best practices.

assistant: A spot light emits a cone-shaped beam of light from the tip of the cone,
in a given direction.

Power
:   Power of the light. Higher values increase the intensity of the light.
    Negative values can be set, but should be avoided for predictable and physically based result.

Radius
:   When larger than zero, light will be emitted from a spherical surfaces with the specified radius.
    Lights with larger size have softer shadows and specular highlights.

Soft Falloff
:   Apply falloff to avoid sharp edges when the light geometry intersects with other objects.

### Beam Shape

[[image reference removed]](../../_images/render_lights_light-object_terms.png)

Changing the spot options also changes the appearance of the spotlight as displayed in the 3D Viewport.

Angle
:   The size of the outer cone of a spot light, which determines how wide the light spreads.
    A smaller angle produces a narrow, focused beam, while a larger angle results in a wider,
    softer illumination area.

    This value represents the angle at the top of the light cone in degrees,
    and can range from **1.0°** (narrow beam) to **180.0°** (very wide beam).

    Changing the spot *Angle* option

    |  |  |
    | --- | --- |
    | <../../_images/render_lights_light-object_size45.png>   Angle: 45° | <../../_images/render_lights_light-object_size60.png>   Angle: 60° |

Blend
:   The *Blend* slider controls the inner cone of the spot.
    The *Blend* value can be between (0.0 to 1.0).
    The value is proportional and represents that amount of space that the inner cone should
    occupy inside the outer cone *Size*.

    The inner cone boundary line indicates the point at which light from the spot will start to blur/soften;
    before this point its light will mostly be full strength.
    The larger the value of *Blend* the more blurred/soft the edges of the spotlight will be,
    and the smaller the inner cone’s circular area will be (as it starts to blur/soften earlier).

    To make the spot have a sharper falloff rate and therefore less blurred/soft edges,
    decrease the value of *Blend*.
    Setting *Blend* to 0.0 results in very sharp spotlight edges, without any transition between light and shadow.

    The falloff rate of the spot light is a ratio between the *Blend* and *Size* values;
    the larger the circular gap between the two, the more gradual the light fades between *Blend* and *Size*.

    *Blend* and *Size* only control the spot light cone’s aperture and softness (“radial” falloff);
    they do not control the shadow’s softness as shown below.

    [[image reference removed]](../../_images/render_lights_light-object_shadow-spotlight.png)

    Render showing the soft edge spotlighted area and the sharp/hard object shadow.

    Notice in the picture above that the object’s shadow is sharp as a result of the ray tracing,
    whereas the spotlight edges are soft.
    If you want other items to cast soft shadows within the spot area, you will need to alter other shadow settings.

Show Cone
:   Displays a transparent cone in 3D Viewport to visualize which objects are contained in it.