Introduction to Custom Render Textures

Custom Render Textures are a special type of texture that allow you to update a texture with a shaderA program that runs on the GPU. More info
See in Glossary. They are an extension to Render TexturesA special type of Texture that is created and updated at runtime. To use them, first create a new Render Texture and designate one of your Cameras to render into it. Then you can use the Render Texture in a Material just like a regular Texture. More info
See in Glossary. You can use Custom Render Textures to create complex simulations like caustics, ripple simulation for rain effects, and liquid splatters.

The Custom Render Textures feature provides a scripting and Shader framework to help with complicated configuration like varying update frequency, partial or multi-pass updates.

To use this framework you need to assign a Material to the Custom Render Texture asset. Custom Render Textures require a compatible Material. For more information, see Writing a shader for a Custom Render Texture.

Render Pipeline Compatibility

The following table describes the compatibility between the Custom Render Textures feature and each render pipelineA series of operations that take the contents of a Scene, and displays them on a screen. Unity lets you choose from pre-built render pipelines, or write your own. More info
See in Glossary:

Note:

1. To create Materials that update and initialize Custom Render Textures in Shader Graph, selecting Custom Render Texture as the target of the shader graph.