How to use Viewports as render targets with a shared World2D

mneg

I want to render each of my game objects off screen before displaying it in the scene to achieve a certain visual effect. Of course it is straightforward to just put each object under it's own Viewport and display its ViewportTexture. However, this way the original object is not affected by the lights (and physics) of the root World2D. Sharing the root World2D seems not to be an option because of recursions.

So is it possible to "just use a different render target" for my sprite (including surrounding lights) without having to deal with Viewport and World2D?

cybereality

Yes, you can by using multiple Viewports and using a culling mask to hide/show specific objects from the Camera2D. However, this is only useful for a few objects at once, because there are performance considerations if you have too many viewports. I haven't actually tested it, but I would guess only a few at a time would be viable (maybe up to 6 or 12, I don't know).

mneg

@cybereality said: Yes, you can by using multiple Viewports and using a culling mask to hide/show specific objects from the Camera2D.

Are you sure? I don't find anything like a culling mask for Camera2D or Viewport.

cybereality

Oh, you may be right. Maybe that trick only works in 3D.