Render Texture

What is Render Texture?

Render Texture is a special texture type that's generated and updated during runtime, allowing cameras to render their view into a texture that can be used as a material on other objects for effects like security monitors or portals.

How does Render Texture work?

This dynamic texture resource captures a camera's perspective as it renders, providing developers with a powerful tool for creating interactive visual effects that would be impossible with static textures.

Unlike standard textures loaded from files, render textures continuously update each frame, reflecting changes in the scene they're capturing. Developers can control various properties including resolution, format, depth buffer settings, and anti-aliasing to balance visual quality against performance requirements.

The technology enables particularly compelling effects in VR applications, where dynamically rendered textures can create convincing screens within virtual environments or implement advanced techniques like portal rendering that extends perceived environments beyond physical limitations. Implementing render textures typically involves creating the texture resource, assigning a camera to output to it, and applying the resulting texture to materials on scene objects.

How is Render Texture used?

Common applications include in-world screens (security cameras, video calls, televisions), dynamic reflections (mirrors, water surfaces), portals showing different locations, minimap displays, user interfaces rendered into the 3D world, and texture-based visual effects.