Render Target

What is a Render Target?

Including Render Target Array

A Render Target is a memory buffer where graphics are drawn before display, with Render Target Arrays enabling simultaneous output to multiple destinations - particularly useful in VR for efficiently rendering different views for each eye.

How does a Render Target work?

A Render Target works as a fundamental graphics programming concept providing a virtual canvas where rendering operations occur before the final image is transferred to the display device. Instead of drawing directly to the screen, modern rendering systems first compose images in these offscreen buffers, enabling sophisticated multi-stage rendering techniques.

Render targets serve numerous purposes beyond basic display preparation, including shadow mapping (capturing light's perspective to calculate shadows), reflection mapping (creating realistic reflections), post-processing effects (applying filters to completed scenes), and deferred rendering (separating lighting calculations from geometry processing).

In stereoscopic applications, Render Target Arrays allow efficient handling of multiple views by organizing related targets into grouped collections with shared properties, reducing CPU overhead when managing separate eye views. This capability forms a critical foundation for performance-optimized VR rendering techniques like single-pass stereo rendering, where both eye views are processed simultaneously through a shared rendering pipeline with specialized targets for each perspective.