# Rendering from the Command Line Using Blender <span style="font-size: 13px;"> <span style="color: var(--tx2);">Planted:</span> <span style="color: var(--tx1);">16 June 2026</span><br> <span style="color: var(--tx2);">Last tended:</span> <span style="color: var(--tx1);">17 June 2026</span> </span> During my time at the first company I worked for, I was responsible for maintaining and eventually expanding, as well as improving, the existing render pipeline. One of the things I learned during this time particularly was using the headless version of Blender, mainly for starting renderings via the command line. The advantages of using the command line are the absence of a graphical display (GUI), which frees system resources, leading to a decrease in render times (and it looks pretty cool). <div style="width:100%;height:0;padding-bottom:56%;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/MM0Jrc8BHKx3y" width="100%" height="100%" style="position:absolute" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe></div><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/hacker-MM0Jrc8BHKx3y"></a></p> Additionally, as in our case, it opened the possibility of managing an entire network of render hardware via a remote shell (SSH), with an automation eventually handling the jobs. Generally, the full list of command line arguments can be accessed by running: `blender --help` > [!INFO] Note > Arguments are executed in the order they are given! ^[https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/command_line/render.html] ## Rendering Single Images `blender -b filename.blend -f 2` `blender -b filename.blend -f 2 -o /project/render/frame_##### -F OPEN_EXR` ## Rendering Animations `blender -b filename.blend -a` `blender -b filename.blend -s 10 -e 100 -a` ## Rendering using a Custom Script In the case of the render pipeline I managed, we had a custom render script handling everything, from samples to camera positions and frames. For rendering a scene using such a custom Python script, run: `blender filename.blend -b -P filename.py` `-P` tells Blender to run the Python script referenced immediately after loading the `.blend` file. ## Further Resources Further and more detailed commands, as well as command line arguments, can be found in [the official Blender documentation](https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/command_line/render.html).