Shared Textures

A Shared Texture is a named GPU image produced in one part of the project and sampled elsewhere. It is the explicit bridge for results that need to cross layer, shader, particle, projector, or 3D-scene boundaries.

Publish and consume

1. Add a Shared Texture Output to the producer graph and connect the result you want to expose.
2. Give the output a clear name based on its role, such as Retained directions or Camera mask.
3. In the consumer, select that named Shared Texture as the source.
4. Check the GPU Resources panel if the expected output is missing or has the wrong size.

Shared Texture output preserves the underlying field type. A vector field or exact ID map is not automatically flattened into display color just because its preview looks like an image.

Why not use Previous Pass everywhere?

Previous Pass only means the current image entering a card in its own stack. It cannot represent every cross-layer or direct 3D/projector dependency. Shared Textures make those dependencies explicit and schedulable.

Names and Rack access

The intended shared-texture workflow exposes useful names in Rack and GPU Resources, supports preview, and allows drag-to-sample authoring. Treat those controls as available only after the shared-texture Rack change is integrated into the Studio build you are using.

See Layers and the stack and Feedback for the two common producer patterns.