dynamic texture / rendering 2D to texture at runtime using Unity Free

In searching around the site, I found the Render Texture feature which appears to be the “proper” way to dynamically render to a texture at runtime. This is only supported with Unity Pro, though.

Does anyone know of a way to get a similar technique with Unity Free? Understood it may not be as good as the proper way to do it, but I’m curious if anyone has been able to get a similar effect with Unity Free.

I’m thinking simple 2D rendering on a 3D object at runtime. For example, a scene with a computer terminal 3D model and rendering 2D content on the computer terminal at runtime in the 3D scene.

One thought I had was just swapping a texture in at runtime. So you create a texture and just keep replacing the texture. Not sure how good the performance would be though.

I never tried it and don’t know if it works or if it is usable for you:
http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=RenderTexture_Free

interesting. thanks!