How should I generate an image of a model?

Questions & Answers
1

I’m making a loot-hunting rpg. I have models for every item in the game. In the GUI, I want icons to show images of those item models. I’d like to generate images of the models at runtime for this (item appearances are modifiable in-game).

I could just instantiate the actual 3D models and position them on their icons, but while that may have better aesthetic potential, it’d be quite an unnecessary performance hit, so I’d prefer to actually render them to an image asset instead.

I googled but didn’t find much. Any ideas? I have absolutely no clue how to go about doing this…

2

1: create a render texture
2: insert the model and a cam to the scene, and apply the render textures to the cam
3: repeat this over and over again until you have all the needed render textures and use them.

hint: using this way, it is possible to apply scripts to the models to make them rotate or such.