I'm trying to create a simple GUI system and am currently stuck on how to implement a textarea with a scrollbar. In other words, the text is too large to fit into the view area. I want to learn how to do this, so I'd rather not use an already rolled API.

I believe this could be done if the text were part of a texture, but if the game had a lot of unique dialog, this seems expensive.

I researched creating a texture on the fly and writing to it, but came up with nothing.

Any suggested strategies would be appreciated. I believe it boils down to: text in a texture and how? Or something I have not thought of...