render to texture

Rendering to a texture is usually for effects. I mean, rendering to textures you could create dynamic mirrors (render to texture, then map that texture to geometry and bam, it looks like a mirror), you could do other things too. My mind isn't really with me right now. Long day at work. But they are pretty handy given the right circumstances.

There are lots of things:
For example you can render the scene to a texture, then apply that texture to an irregular shaped quad. Something like seen in Samuari Jack.

http://www.goldenlands.com/cartoon%20network/samurai_jack/opcs/full%20size/samurai_jack_limited.jpg

Rendering to texture gives you the advantage of at runtime being able to manipulat e the scene that has just been presented such as creating a realistic reflection effect. Some of the render to texture techniques used are reflection of a scene in water, blurring/distortion of the already rendered scene. The HDR demo's found in the stickies also use the render to texture technique to create a bloom effect.

There are so many applications for Render to Texture and it's really one of the graphics developers best tools.

I hope this helps.
Take care.