table of contents
BLENDER(1) | General Commands Manual | BLENDER(1) |
NAME¶
blender - a full-featured 3D application
SYNOPSIS¶
blender [args ...] [file] [args ...]
DESCRIPTION¶
blender is a full-featured 3D application. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline - modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, and video editing.
Use Blender to create 3D images and animations, films and commercials, content for games, architectural and industrial visualizations, and scientific visualizations.
OPTIONS¶
Usage: blender [args ...] [file] [args ...]
Render Options:¶
- -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 Render Options:¶
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.
Format Options:¶
- -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.
Animation Playback Options:¶
- -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).
Window Options:¶
- -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.
Python Options:¶
- -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.
Network Options:¶
- --online-mode
-
Allow internet access, overriding the preference. - --offline-mode
-
Disallow internet access, overriding the preference.
Logging Options:¶
- --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.
Debug Options:¶
- -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-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 Options:¶
- --gpu-backend
-
Force to use a specific GPU backend. Valid options: 'opengl'. - --gpu-compilation-subprocesses
-
Override the Max Compilation Subprocesses setting (OpenGL only).
Misc Options:¶
- --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'.
Argument Parsing:¶
Arguments must be separated by white space, eg:¶
# blender -ba test.blend
...will exit since '-ba' is an unknown argument.
Argument Order:¶
Arguments are executed in the order they are given. eg:¶
# 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.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
$BLENDER_USER_RESOURCES Replace default directory of all user
files.
Other 'BLENDER_USER_*' variables override when set.
$BLENDER_USER_CONFIG Directory for user configuration files.
$BLENDER_USER_SCRIPTS Directory for user scripts.
$BLENDER_USER_EXTENSIONS Directory for user extensions.
$BLENDER_USER_DATAFILES Directory for user data files (icons, translations,
..).
$BLENDER_SYSTEM_RESOURCES Replace default directory of all bundled resource
files.
$BLENDER_SYSTEM_SCRIPTS Directory to add more bundled scripts.
$BLENDER_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS Directory for system extensions repository.
$BLENDER_SYSTEM_DATAFILES Directory to replace bundled datafiles.
$BLENDER_SYSTEM_PYTHON Directory to replace bundled Python libraries.
$OCIO Path to override the OpenColorIO configuration file.
$TMPDIR Store temporary files here (UNIX Systems).
The path must reference an existing directory or it will be ignored.
SEE ALSO¶
luxrender(1)
AUTHORS¶
This manpage was written for a Debian GNU/Linux system by Daniel Mester <mester@uni-bremen.de> and updated by Cyril Brulebois <cyril.brulebois@enst-bretagne.fr> and Dan Eicher <dan@trollwerks.org>.
November 14, 2024 | Blender 4.2.3 LTS |