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Render to texture

by Daniel Buckmaster · in Torque Game Engine · 10/09/2010 (3:40 am) · 2 replies

This is a pretty general question - does render-to-texture require the use of shaders? I've never been very clear on this :P. If not, I assume it can theoretically be done in TGE, hopefully without changing the system requirements. Similarly for effects like rendering GUIs on objects.
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Torque Owner Daniel Buckmaster
T3D Steering Committee

About the author

Studying mechatronic engineering and computer science at the University of Sydney. Game development is probably my most time-consuming hobby!

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    Associate Chris Haigler
    Jester Dance
    #1
    10/09/2010 (5:51 am)
    No, render-to-texture doesn't require shader usage. There's actually a variety of ways to render to a texture target in OpenGL, namely via glCopyTexSubImage2D(), PBuffers, EXT_framebuffer_object and (more recently) GL_ARB_framebuffer_object.

    For some more reading you can search for glCopyTexSubImage2D(), WGL_ARB_pbuffer, EXT_framebuffer_object and GL_ARB_framebuffer_object.

    Specifically for TGE, Duncan Grey added supported for EXT_framebuffer_object and PBuffers for his SceneObject Shadow resource. That resource is outdated/unsupported now but checking it out may give you a good idea on how to implement render-to-texture support.

    Torque Owner Daniel Buckmaster
    T3D Steering Committee
    #2
    10/09/2010 (7:04 am)
    Thanks! I had hoped that was the case, just needed to confirm it with someone who knew. And thanks for the tip! I probably won't get around to doing this any time soon, but I plan on making some sort of generic render-camera-view-to-shape object that you can attach to other objects.