blender - Man Page

-b or --background

Run in background (often used for UI-less rendering).

The audio device is disabled in background-mode by default
and can be re-enabled by passing in '-setaudo Default' afterwards.

-a or --render-anim

Render frames from start to end (inclusive).

-S or --scene <name>

Set the active scene <name> for rendering.

-f or --render-frame <frame>

Render frame <frame> and save it.

* +<frame> start frame relative, -<frame> end frame relative.
* A comma separated list of frames can also be used (no spaces).
* A range of frames can be expressed using '..' separator between the first and last frames (inclusive).

-s or --frame-start <frame>

Set start to frame <frame>, supports +/- for relative frames too.

-e or --frame-end <frame>

Set end to frame <frame>, supports +/- for relative frames too.

-j or --frame-jump <frames>

Set number of frames to step forward after each rendered frame.

-o or --render-output <path>

Set the render path and file name.
Use '//' at the start of the path to render relative to the blend-file.

The '#' characters are replaced by the frame number, and used to define zero padding.

* 'animation_##_test.png' becomes 'animation_01_test.png'
* 'test-######.png' becomes 'test-000001.png'

When the filename does not contain '#', the suffix '####' is added to the filename.

The frame number will be added at the end of the filename, eg:
# blender -b animation.blend -o //render_ -F PNG -x 1 -a
'//render_' becomes '//render_####', writing frames as '//render_0001.png'

-E or --engine <engine>

Specify the render engine.
Use '-E help' to list available engines.

-t or --threads <threads>

Use amount of <threads> for rendering and other operations
[1-1024], 0 to use the systems processor count.

 Cycles add-on options must be specified following a double dash.

--cycles-device <device>

Set the device used for rendering.
Valid options are: 'CPU' 'CUDA' 'OPTIX' 'HIP' 'ONEAPI' 'METAL'.

Append +CPU to a GPU device to render on both CPU and GPU.

Example:
# blender -b file.blend -f 20 -- --cycles-device OPTIX

--cycles-print-stats

Log statistics about render memory and time usage.

-F or --render-format <format>

Set the render format.
Valid options are:
'TGA' 'RAWTGA' 'JPEG' 'IRIS' 'AVIRAW' 'AVIJPEG' 'PNG' 'BMP' 'HDR' 'TIFF'.

Formats that can be compiled into Blender, not available on all systems:
'OPEN_EXR' 'OPEN_EXR_MULTILAYER' 'FFMPEG' 'CINEON' 'DPX' 'JP2' 'WEBP'.

-x or --use-extension <bool>

Set option to add the file extension to the end of the file.

-a <options> <file(s)>

Instead of showing Blender's user interface, this runs Blender as an animation player,
to view movies and image sequences rendered in Blender (ignored if '-b' is set).

Playback Arguments:

-p <sx> <sy>
 Open with lower left corner at <sx>, <sy>.
-m
 Read from disk (Do not buffer).
-f <fps> <fps_base>
 Specify FPS to start with.
-j <frame>
 Set frame step to <frame>.
-s <frame>
 Play from <frame>.
-e <frame>
 Play until <frame>.
-c <cache_memory>
 Amount of memory in megabytes to allow for caching images during playback.
 Zero disables (clamping to a fixed number of frames instead).

-w or --window-border

Force opening with borders.

-W or --window-fullscreen

Force opening in full-screen mode.

-p or --window-geometry <sx> <sy> <w> <h>

Open with lower left corner at <sx>, <sy> and width and height as <w>, <h>.

-M or --window-maximized

Force opening maximized.

-con or --start-console

Start with the console window open (ignored if '-b' is set), (Windows only).

--no-native-pixels

Do not use native pixel size, for high resolution displays (MacBook 'Retina').

--no-window-focus

Open behind other windows and without taking focus.

-y or --enable-autoexec

Enable automatic Python script execution.

-Y or --disable-autoexec

Disable automatic Python script execution (Python-drivers & startup scripts), (default).

-P or --python <filepath>

Run the given Python script file.

--python-text <name>

Run the given Python script text block.

--python-expr <expression>

Run the given expression as a Python script.

--python-console

Run Blender with an interactive console.

--python-exit-code <code>

Set the exit-code in [0..255] to exit if a Python exception is raised
(only for scripts executed from the command line), zero disables.

--python-use-system-env

Allow Python to use system environment variables such as 'PYTHONPATH' and the user site-packages directory.

--addons <addon(s)>

Comma separated list (no spaces) of add-ons to enable in addition to any default add-ons.

--online-mode

Allow internet access, overriding the preference.

--offline-mode

Disallow internet access, overriding the preference.

--log <match>

Enable logging categories, taking a single comma separated argument.
Multiple categories can be matched using a '.*' suffix,
so '--log "wm.*"' logs every kind of window-manager message.
Sub-string can be matched using a '*' prefix and suffix,
so '--log "*undo*"' logs every kind of undo-related message.
Use "^" prefix to ignore, so '--log "*,^wm.operator.*"' logs all except for 'wm.operators.*'
Use "*" to log everything.

--log-level <level>

Set the logging verbosity level (higher for more details) defaults to 1,
use -1 to log all levels.

--log-show-basename

Only show file name in output (not the leading path).

--log-show-backtrace

Show a back trace for each log message (debug builds only).

--log-show-timestamp

Show a timestamp for each log message in seconds since start.

--log-file <filepath>

Set a file to output the log to.

-d or --debug

Turn debugging on.

* Enables memory error detection
* Disables mouse grab (to interact with a debugger in some cases)
* Keeps Python's 'sys.stdin' rather than setting it to None

--debug-value <value>

Set debug value of <value> on startup.

--debug-events

Enable debug messages for the event system.

--debug-ffmpeg

Enable debug messages from FFmpeg library.

--debug-handlers

Enable debug messages for event handling.

--debug-libmv

Enable debug messages from libmv library.

--debug-cycles

Enable debug messages from Cycles.

--debug-memory

Enable fully guarded memory allocation and debugging.

--debug-jobs

Enable time profiling for background jobs.

--debug-python

Enable debug messages for Python.

--debug-depsgraph

Enable all debug messages from dependency graph.

--debug-depsgraph-eval

Enable debug messages from dependency graph related on evaluation.

--debug-depsgraph-build

Enable debug messages from dependency graph related on graph construction.

--debug-depsgraph-tag

Enable debug messages from dependency graph related on tagging.

--debug-depsgraph-no-threads

Switch dependency graph to a single threaded evaluation.

--debug-depsgraph-time

Enable debug messages from dependency graph related on timing.

--debug-depsgraph-pretty

Enable colors for dependency graph debug messages.

--debug-depsgraph-uid

Verify validness of session-wide identifiers assigned to ID data-blocks.

--debug-ghost

Enable debug messages for Ghost (Linux only).

--debug-wintab

Enable debug messages for Wintab.

--debug-gpu

Enable GPU debug context and information for OpenGL 4.3+.

--debug-gpu-force-workarounds

Enable workarounds for typical GPU issues and disable all GPU extensions.

--debug-gpu-compile-shaders

Compile all statically defined shaders to test platform compatibility.

--debug-wm

Enable debug messages for the window manager, shows all operators in search, shows keymap errors.

--debug-xr

Enable debug messages for virtual reality contexts.
Enables the OpenXR API validation layer, (OpenXR) debug messages and general information prints.

--debug-xr-time

Enable debug messages for virtual reality frame rendering times.

--debug-all

Enable all debug messages.

--debug-io

Enable debug messages for I/O (Collada, ...).

--debug-fpe

Enable floating-point exceptions.

--debug-exit-on-error

Immediately exit when internal errors are detected.

--debug-freestyle

Enable debug messages for Freestyle.

--disable-crash-handler

Disable the crash handler.

--disable-abort-handler

Disable the abort handler.

--verbose <verbose>

Set the logging verbosity level for debug messages that support it.

--gpu-backend

Force to use a specific GPU backend. Valid options: 'opengl'.

--gpu-compilation-subprocesses

Override the Max Compilation Subprocesses setting (OpenGL only).

--open-last

Open the most recently opened blend file, instead of the default startup file.

--app-template <template>

Set the application template (matching the directory name), use 'default' for none.

--factory-startup

Skip reading the 'startup.blend' in the users home directory.

--enable-event-simulate

Enable event simulation testing feature 'bpy.types.Window.event_simulate'.

--env-system-datafiles

Set the BLENDER_SYSTEM_DATAFILES environment variable.

--env-system-scripts

Set the BLENDER_SYSTEM_SCRIPTS environment variable.

--env-system-extensions

Set the BLENDER_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS environment variable.

--env-system-python

Set the BLENDER_SYSTEM_PYTHON environment variable.

-noaudio

Force sound system to None.

-setaudio

Force sound system to a specific device.
'None' 'Default' 'SDL' 'OpenAL' 'CoreAudio' 'JACK' 'PulseAudio' 'WASAPI'.

-c or --command <command>

Run a command which consumes all remaining arguments.
Use '-c help' to list all other commands.
Pass '--help' after the command to see its help text.

This implies '--background' mode.

-h or --help

Print this help text and exit.

/?

Print this help text and exit (Windows only).

-r or --register

Register blend-file extension for current user, then exit (Windows & Linux only).

--register-allusers

Register blend-file extension for all users, then exit (Windows & Linux only).

--unregister

Unregister blend-file extension for current user, then exit (Windows & Linux only).

--unregister-allusers

Unregister blend-file extension for all users, then exit (Windows & Linux only).

-v or --version

Print Blender version and exit.

--

End option processing, following arguments passed unchanged. Access via Python's 'sys.argv'.

 # blender -ba test.blend
 ...will exit since '-ba' is an unknown argument.

 # blender --background test.blend --render-frame 1 --render-output "/tmp"
 ...will not render to '/tmp' because '--render-frame 1' renders before the output path is set.
 # blender --background --render-output /tmp test.blend --render-frame 1
 ...will not render to '/tmp' because loading the blend-file overwrites the render output that was set.
 # blender --background test.blend --render-output /tmp --render-frame 1
 ...works as expected.