How did the Crusades and the Renaissance encourage the age of exploration?

The crusades required many men from Europe to travel great distances to the Middle East, which in turn showed them many new things they likely had never seen before in their native land. These encounters with the middle easterners gave way to new ideas and inventions through interaction with the people there. These new ideas were likely brought back to Europe and were present during the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a time of new exploration in the world, as the Europeans wanted to gather every bit of knowledge and culture from different corners of the earth in order to improve their own society. Spices, gunpowder, art, weapons, you name it all came from different areas of the world and in Europe they took advantage of the new knowledge as best they could.