Aim the light first — then paint it.
Light Painter
Stop fighting lights.
Paint them.
The first Blender add-on that makes lighting feel like painting. Use brushes, gradients, selections, and layers — right in the viewport — to shape light exactly the way you see it.
Works with Cycles · Spot & Area lights
Traditional lighting in Blender feels indirect and frustrating: tweaking position, size, power, swapping gobo textures, adjusting everything over and over until get the mood right.
Light Painter changes everything. Paint with light directly on your scene — every stroke lands in the viewport in real time. Your lights become fully editable creative tools with layers, blend modes, and non-destructive control. Intuitive, expressive, fun.
Paint light like
you paint in Photoshop
Pick a brush, adjust size, hardness, strength, flow, and falloff — then paint straight into the viewport. Erase mode for quick fixes. Simple, responsive, and addictive.
GIF preview — watch full quality on X (Twitter) ↗
Gradient light,
endless creativity
Drag to cast beautiful linear or radial gradients onto your scene. Soft falloffs, dramatic vignettes, smooth color washes — stack them with blend modes for complex effects that would be nearly impossible with traditional lighting.
GIF preview — watch full quality on X (Twitter) ↗
Drag to set the direction, switch between linear and radial. Combine them with different blend modes — the possibilities are truly endless.
Fully editable gradients. In Real Time.
Gradients got a major upgrade. Drag color stops anywhere, change colors, add or remove them — every change is live in the viewport before you apply result. Stretch radials into ovals, shift the focus off-center, or scatter points across your scene with the new mesh gradient type. Every gradient supports noise. Stuck? Hit the magic button — randomize.
Three gradient types, multi-stop live editing, seven noise patterns, oval radials with focal shift, and a randomize button for when you don't know where to start. Free update for existing customers.
Define the area.
Control the light.
Use familiar tools — rectangle, lasso, polyline, and brush selection — to paint, fill, or erase light only where you want it. Achieve texel-level precision directly in the viewport.
GIF preview — watch full quality on X (Twitter) ↗
Selections just got soft. Light Space support.
Set a falloff radius on any selection and the edge ramps inward instead of cutting hard. It's a true distance falloff, not a blur — corners stay sharp, rectangles stay rectangular, and a thin shape keeps a solid core instead of fading away. Brush, gradient and fill all respect the ramp proportionally, so a soft selection gives you a soft light edge, not a stepped one.
Selection now works in Light Space too, not just Camera Space — same tools, same shortcuts, same marching-ants preview, applied in the light's own projection so it stays put no matter where you orbit. Heads up: it does more work per stroke than Camera Space, so on big textures it can feel slightly laggy.
Paint without
fear of mistakes
Create as many layers as you need and split your light into independent layers for full control. Reorder, hide, change blend modes, transform, or delete any layer anytime. Nothing is baked. Just like Photoshop, now for light.
GIF preview — watch full quality on X (Twitter) ↗
Each layer works on its own. Put broad shapes on one layer, details on another. Undo per layer. Duplicate to A/B test. Toggle visibility to compare. Every layer has its own blend mode, offset, rotation, and scale.
Hard edges in.
Soft light out.
A real blur brush — for light. Drag it across any edge and the cutoff melts into a falloff. Harsh gobo borders, banding in a gradient, a stroke that came out too crisp: soften it in place, exactly where you point, without repainting a thing.
GIF preview — watch full quality on X (Twitter) ↗
Blur builds up like it does in Photoshop — one pass softens, five passes melt. It runs in both Camera Space and Light Space, honours the active selection, and blurs premultiplied so transparent edges never darken into halos. Three settings, nothing else to learn: Size, Strength, Hardness.
Already have a gobo? Drop it in.
Drop any PNG, JPG, or EXR gobo directly onto your light. It instantly becomes a fully editable layer — ready for painting, erasing, masking or animating.
GIF preview — watch full quality on X (Twitter) ↗
Apply ready texture to light layer. Erase a corner with the brush, push a gradient across it, change its blend mode, animate it. Pre-made gobos stop being static images — they become starting points.
Keyframe layers,
animate the light
Light Painter fully supports Blender's animation system. Add keyframes to any layer — or an entire set of layers — and watch your light textures animate smoothly over time. Move, fade, transform, and blend your gobo patterns across frames with full timeline control.
GIF preview — watch full quality on X (Twitter) ↗
The light stays untouched. Independent layer animation lets you achieve complex scene lighting using just one light — no need for multiple lights.
Light Aim
Stop dragging lights around.
Aim them.
Move your cursor over the scene and the light follows it — keep the distance, brightness, finding its way around anything in the way. Press Ctrl+Shift+L, aim, click. That's the whole workflow.
Blender 3.6+ · Every light type · Eevee & Cycles
You always know where the light should land. Getting it there is the annoying part: tweak position, rotation, orbit, check camera view, flip back, do it again.
Light Aim turns that around. You point at the result you want — this surface lit, or highlight here, or shadow falling across this point — and it solves for the light position that produces it, live, while you move.
Three ways to say
“put the light here”
Same gesture every time — hover the scene, the light tracks your cursor.
Normal
The light sits on the surface normal under your cursor, at your chosen distance — straight-on, even, predictable. The classic “light this thing” move. A Surface Smoothing slider decides how much detail the normal reads.
Reflect
Point at where you want the highlight. The light is placed so your cursor becomes a specular hit for the current camera — the mirror angle is solved for you. This is how you put a glint exactly on the edge of a bottle, a cheekbone, a car panel, instead of hunting for it.
Shadow
Point at where you want the shadow. Pick a caster — one object, or a whole collection treated as a single shape — and Light Aim searches for the light position that drops its shadow edge right onto your cursor. Nothing else on the market aims a light this way. In beta — it works in both engines, but very complex geometry can still need a nudge.
Aim the shadow,
not the light.
Shadows are usually the part you fight hardest for and control least. Shadowed mode inverts it: you drive the shadow directly with the mouse and the light goes wherever it has to go to make that happen. It's the newest and most innovative part in the Light Aim, but it ships as beta: solid on ordinary scenes, occasionally in need of a nudge on very complex geometry. Works in both Eevee and Cycles.
To be precise about what the cursor holds: it is the midpoint of the caster's shadow edge. Light Aim takes the shadow boundary the caster throws, finds the middle of it, and solves for the light position that keeps exactly that point under your mouse while you move. So you are placing the edge of the shadow — the rest of the shape follows from the caster's geometry and the size of the light.
Move the light.
Keep the exposure.
Pull a light back and the scene goes dark; push it in and it blows out. So you fix the position, then fix the power, then the position changed the falloff again. Turn on Constant Energy (E) and that loop disappears.
The moment you start moving, probe rays go out through the light’s own frustum and the scene is re-measured every frame. Power is rescaled so the trimmed-mean brightness of the surfaces actually being hit stays at the value it started from.
The measurement follows what the renderer really does — cone falloff and inverse-square distance for spots, incidence angle for area lights. What you are looking at while you aim is what you get.
Nothing repositions itself behind your back. The distance you set is the distance you keep — the only thing moving is power.
It checks whether the light
can actually see you.
Aiming into a room through a wall is the fastest way to waste a minute. Light Aim traces from the target back to the light, and when something is in the way it redirects or pulls the light in until the line of sight is real.
Blocked by geometry? The light is redirected or moved closer until it can genuinely illuminate the cursor — and the header tells you when it had to, and by how much.
Nominate an object or a collection that aiming rays pass straight through — glass, a ceiling, a fog volume, a proxy cage. They stop hijacking every raycast.
Circle the light around the surface point it's aiming at, the lit object's centre (holding your distance from its outer surface).
Camera navigation is locked while you aim, so a stray middle-click or numpad press can't spin the view out from under you mid-placement.
One hand on the mouse,
one on the keyboard.
Power, size, spread, distance and mode are all live while you're aiming — you never drop out to a panel and lose the pose you had.
Ctrl+Shift+L is the default shortcut for starting Light Aim. If it collides with something you already use, change it in the add-on preferences — the keymap entry is exposed there.
Choose version
Light Painter is two add-ons in one now: paint the light, and — new in this version — place the light, with Light Aim in its own sidebar tab. It's in active development with major features still on the way, so the price will keep going up as they ship. Buy now, get every future update included.
Core brush painting with layers — a great way to start painting light.
- ✓ Brush tool (paint & erase)
- ✓ Layer system
- ✓ Color fill
- ✓ Undo/Redo Support
The complete toolkit — every tool, every setting, zero limitations.
Everything in Lite, plus:
- ✓ Gradient tool (linear & radial & mesh)
- ✓ Selection tool (rect, circle, lasso, polyline, brush) + Feather
- ✓ Blur tool
- ✓ Paint Surface Selector
- ✓ Viewport toolbar
- ✓ Animation Support
- ✓ Gobo → Layer
- ✓ Smart Preview
- and more ...
+ Light Aim included What is it?
A second tool inside the add-on — position the light. On its own sidebar tab: works with every light type, in Eevee and Cycles.
For the full feature list for each version see Documentation ↗
Every Purchase Supports Blender
Part of every sale goes to the Blender Development Fund — supporting the people who keep Blender free, open-source, and incredible for everyone.
What people say
after they try it.
Every review below is from a verified buyer on the Superhive (Blender Market) product page — unedited, just shortened to the main point.
This add-on is built
on what you tell me.
Almost everything on the roadmap started with a message from someone using it — the blur tool, the viewport toolbar, the feather on selections. If something feels awkward, breaks, or is missing, I want to hear it: bug reports, feature requests, and "why does it work like this?" are all equally useful.
Fastest way to reach me is Discord — I read everything and usually answer the same day (sometimes longer if I'm deep in a new feature 🙈). Bugs get a fix in the next patch wherever I can manage it.
Already using Light Painter? A review on Superhive helps more than you'd think — it's the first place I look when deciding what to build next. Bug reports and rough edges are welcome, but so is "this works great" — the good feedback is just as useful, because it tells me which parts are worth building on.
New features
I'm actively developing new features to make Light Painter even more powerful.
- Shipped in v1.1.0Advanced Gradient ControlsMulti-stop ColorRamp with drag-and-drop control in the viewport, plus noise warping.
- Shipped in v1.1.0Radial Focal ShiftStretch radials gradient into ovals and offset the focal point for asymmetric, off-center light falloff.
- Shipped in v1.1.0Mesh GradientA new gradient type — instead of blending between two endpoints, it blends between any number of colored points placed freely in 2D space.
- Shipped in v1.2.0Blur ToolBlur the result for better and more smooth light transition.
- Shipped in v1.2.0Selection FeatherFalloff radius on any selection — soft, corner-preserving edges that paint, gradients and fills all respect.
- Shipped in v1.2.0Custom Viewport MenuEvery tool and its settings in one in-viewport toolbar — no sidebar trips mid-stroke.
- Shipped in v1.2.0Circle SelectionA circle/ellipse selection shape to go with the new feather falloff.
- In progressGobo StudioAn interactive editor for the light pattern itself — build blinds, windows, foliage and grids from parametric shapes, tweak them live on the light, and start from a bundled library of ready-made gobos instead of a blank texture.
- In progressLine ToolDraw precise straight lines and polylines Illustrator-style — click to anchor points, build connected segments, and shape light with geometric accuracy.
- In progressSmear ToolReshape light intuitively without redoing paint.
- Noise-Driven LayersAttach a noise modulator to any layer to drive opacity, position, or scale — bringing animation to the next level with organic flicker, drift, and procedural motion.
- Symmetry PaintingPaint with X, Y, or radial symmetry — set the gap and repeat count to build symmetric, pattern-style light with a single stroke.
- Textured BrushPaint with image-based brush tips for organic patterns like leaves and custom shapes.
- EEVEE support (experimental)Bring light painting to EEVEE. Different engine, same creative workflow. Depends on Blender's API, but I'll do my best to make it happen.
- Light PresetsA library of ready-made studio setups — three-point, beauty, rim, product table, window light — dropped into your scene as real lights, aimed and balanced, ready to adjust from there instead of built from nothing.
- HDRI → Lights (AI)Read the HDRI you're already lighting with, find where the energy actually comes from, and rebuild it as separate scene lights that match the look — so you keep the HDRI's mood but get real lights you can move, colour, re-shape and re-aim.
FAQ
Can't find the answer to your question? Feel free to reach out to me on X (Twitter) or Discord.
What exactly does Light Painter paint on?
It paints on the light's gobo texture — the image that controls what a Spot or Area light projects. You're not painting on scene objects or meshes. The light itself is your canvas, so there are no limitations from object materials or emission shaders. Everything happens on the light.
Is this the same "Light Painter" add-on from the Blender Extensions platform?
No — those are two completely separate add-ons by different developers. The one on Blender Extensions is a light placement helper that puts lights where you click on a surface. This Light Painter does something fundamentally different: it masks and shapes the light itself, giving you full control over what areas get lit and which don't. Same name, very different tools.
Can I paint from any viewport angle, or only camera view?
You can paint from any angle — just use your mouse cursor in the viewport. There are two projection modes: Camera Space (what you see on screen maps 1:1 to the paint result) and Light Space (paint maps relative to the light's own projection, consistent regardless of viewing angle). Pick whichever fits your needs.
How do I set it up? Do I place lights first?
Yes — you place your Spot or Area lights in the scene as usual, then select a light and start painting inside its projection. There's no special setup, no node wiring, no material graph. Install the add-on, pick a light, add a layer, paint.
Can I paint with color? How do multicolored lights work?
Pick any color and paint — you can do it all on one layer or spread colors across separate layers. Each layer has its own blend mode, so you control exactly how colors mix. Under the hood, each light gets its own stack of gobo textures that you paint on independently.
Are there limitations on shadow softness or light control?
No — since you're painting the gobo texture, everything that Blender's Cycles engine can do with that texture still applies. Light size, shadow softness, intensity, and falloff all work normally. Light Painter just gives you a much faster, more visual way to create and edit the gobo itself.
Can I export painted lights to Unity or Unreal?
Light Painter uses a layer stack built on top of Blender's light shader nodes, so the multi-layer setup itself won't transfer to another engine. The recommended workflow: merge your layers into a single image (Full version has Merge Visible), then export that texture and assign it as a light cookie in your engine. Both Unity ("Cookies") and Unreal ("Light Functions" / gobo textures) natively support this — just drop the exported image onto a light and you're set.
Does it work with multiple lights in the scene?
Yes — any number of lights. Each light can keep its own layer stack, so you can jump between lights, add or edit layers on each one, and paint each independently. There's no setup per light: select it, add a layer, start painting.
Do I need to set up geometry nodes or shaders?
No. Light Painter doesn't use geometry nodes. You install the add-on, pick a light, and start painting.
Which Blender versions and render engines are supported?
Blender 3.6.x on Windows, macOS and Linux. The painting side runs on Cycles and applies to Spot and Area lights — those are the lights that project a gobo texture. Light Aim, the placement side, is engine-independent: it works in both Eevee and Cycles, with Point, Sun, Spot and Area lights.
Can I use Light Painter commercially?
Yes — one license covers personal and commercial use, including client work, studios, and freelance projects.
Will it slow down my viewport?
Painting runs in real time and is designed to stay responsive. Layer compositing is handled efficiently per-light, and you can work on complex scenes with multiple painted lights without significant overhead.
Which lights does it work with?
All four of them — Point, Sun, Spot and Area — in Blender 3.6 and newer. Aiming only needs a light and some geometry to hit, so it isn't tied to a light type or a render engine. The extras that only some lights have (cone angle and blend on spots, size on area lights) simply appear when the selected light has them.
Does it change my light's settings permanently?
Only what you confirm. While the modal runs it drives position, rotation and — if Constant Energy is on — power. Escape or right-click restores everything exactly as it was before you pressed Ctrl+Shift+L. Left-click or Enter commits.
Will it work in my scene if things keep getting in the way?
That case is handled directly. Aiming rays skip the object under your cursor and, in Shadowed mode, the shadow caster; you can also nominate an object or collection to ignore entirely, so glass, ceilings and proxy geometry stop intercepting rays. If something still blocks the light's path to the target, the placement is redirected or pulled in and the viewport header tells you it happened.
Does it work with Cycles and EEVEE?
Aiming is a placement tool — it moves the light object and reads scene geometry, so it's not tied to a render engine, and it works while you're rendering in either. Constant Energy measures brightness using the same maths the renderer uses for spot and area lights, so its readings match what you get out of Cycles.
Is Light Aim a separate add-on?
No — it's a new feature of Light Painter, living in its own Light Aim sidebar tab. Same install, same licence, no extra cost. Painting the light and placing it are two halves of the same workflow, so they belong in the same tool.
How do I actually aim a light?
Select a Spot or Area light and press Ctrl+Shift+L — the default shortcut, which you can rebind in the add-on preferences — or hit the button in the sidebar. The light then follows your cursor across the scene. 1 / 2 / 3 switch between Reflect, Normal and Shadowed; the scroll wheel drives power, Alt+wheel the distance, Shift+wheel the cone angle or area size, Ctrl+wheel the spot blend. Left-click or Enter commits; Esc or right-click puts everything back.
What's the difference between Normal and Reflect mode?
Normal puts the light straight out along the surface normal under your cursor, at whatever distance you've set — it hits that spot square-on, which is the predictable "just light this" answer. Reflect instead solves the mirror angle for the current camera, so the point you're aiming at becomes a specular highlight. Same gesture, two different questions: light this, versus put a glint exactly here.
Does Constant Energy really match what the render shows?
It measures brightness with the same falloff maths the renderer uses — inverse-square with the spot cone term for spots, N·L across the emitter for area lights — sampled over the light's frustum and averaged with the outliers trimmed. Push the light closer or further and the power compensates, so the lit area keeps roughly the exposure you had. It's an estimate rather than a render, but close enough that you stop re-tuning power after every move.
The light jitters when I move over detailed geometry — can I damp that?
That's the surface normal changing under your cursor on noisy meshes. The Surface Smoothing slider averages normals over a wider area: 0 follows every bump, higher values read the broader shape of the surface. Turn it up on foliage, fabric, displaced terrain and sculpted detail.
Can I still move the light by hand afterwards?
Yes. Aiming only sets the light object's transform — and its power, if Constant Energy is on. No constraints, drivers or hidden helpers are left behind. Grab it with G, keyframe it, parent it to a rig, do whatever you normally would, and aim again whenever you want to re-point it.
Why Shadow Mode is marked beta?
Because it's brand new and, under the hood, the most complex thing here — it's solving an inverse problem every frame: you say where the result should land, and it works backwards to a light position that produces it. It's been tested hard and it holds up in normal scenes, but with complex geometry, occluders or an unusual setup it can still land somewhere you didn't mean. Beta is me being honest about that rather than pretending the edge cases don't exist. It works today, it will keep getting better with each update, and everything it changes is undoable with Esc.
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