render to texture offscreen?

[UncleBob]

For something akin to a meshviewer, I want to render a preview pic of the meshes. Render to texture seems just the thing for that, but the tutorial only deals with rendering stuff present in the scene to texture. Is it somehow possible to do this offscreen, without having the meshes on the screen first? Or is it simpler to process the sceen completely and just draw a splash-screen over it so the user doesn't notice?

[CuteAlien]

The RenderToTexture tutorial renders the scene a second time to get it on the screen. Just don't do that and you have it only in the texture.

[UncleBob]

Sorry, I was inprecise. What I mean is rendering a mesh to a texture without even the mesh being visible in the scene.

[hendu]

Yes, that's what RTTs do. The example just does more.

[UncleBob]

Only now I realise what the switch of render target really means in the tutorial... so the whole scene is effectively rendered to the texture instead of on the screen, and then another time on the screen. Somehow that passed me by completely.

Thanks a lot to both of you!