blender Command Examples

Command-line interface to the Blender 3D computer graphics application. Arguments are executed in the order they are given. More information: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/command_line/arguments.html.

• Render all frames of an animation in the background, without loading the UI (output is saved to /tmp):

blender {{[-b|--background]}} {{path/to/file.blend}} {{[-a|--render-anim]}}

• Render an animation using a specific image naming pattern, in a path relative (//) to the .blend file:

blender {{[-b|--background]}} {{path/to/file.blend}} {{[-o|--render-output]}} //{{render/frame_###.png}} {{[-a|--render-anim]}}

• Render the 10th frame of an animation as a single image, saved to an existing directory (absolute path):

blender {{[-b|--background]}} {{path/to/file.blend}} {{[-o|--render-output]}} {{/path/to/output_directory}} {{[-f|--render-frame]}} {{10}}

• Render the second last frame in an animation as a JPEG image, saved to an existing directory (relative path):

blender {{[-b|--background]}} {{path/to/file.blend}} {{[-o|--render-output]}} //{{output_directory}} {{[-f|--render-frame]}} {{JPEG}} {{[-f|--render-frame]}} {{-2}}

• Render the animation of a specific scene, starting at frame 10 and ending at frame 500:

blender {{[-b|--background]}} {{path/to/file.blend}} {{[-S|--scene]}} {{scene_name}} {{[-s|--frame-start]}} {{10}} {{[-e|--frame-end]}} {{500}} {{[-a|--render-anim]}}

• Render an animation at a specific resolution, by passing a Python expression:

blender {{[-b|--background]}} {{path/to/file.blend}} --python-expr '{{import bpy; bpy.data.scenes[0].render.resolution_percentage = 25}}' {{[-a|--render-anim]}}

• Start an interactive Blender session in the terminal with a Python console (do import bpy after starting):

blender {{[-b|--background]}} --python-console