Just to sum up for any other Command Prompt noobs…
On Windows to render specified frame(s) from specified scene(s) for multiple .blend files do this…
- Open notepad and paste in this code…
cd C:\Documents and Settings\Neil Hunt\My Documents\Data\Blender Command Test
“C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender” -b commandtest.blend -S Scene1 -s 1 -e 14 -a
“C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender” -b commandtest.blend -S Scene2 -s 1 -e 18 -a
- Now find the folder that contains the .blend file you want to render, copy the full path name and replace my path name…
C:\Documents and Settings\Neil Hunt\My Documents\Data\Blender Command Test
…with yours. Don’t paste over the top of the cd (change directory) at the start.
- Now find the folder that contains your blender.exe file and replace my…
C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender
…with your path name (it may be the same). Make sure you keep the " on each end.
- For each .blend file you want to render you need the previous line to find the Blender application plus a line like this…
-b commandtest.blend -S Scene1 -s 1 -e 14 -a
where “-b” means render this file in the background,
“commandtest.blend” is the name of your .blend file
“-S” is the name of the scene you want to render (if you leave “-S Scene1” out will it render the active scene? - not sure, you’ll have to find that out)
“-s 1” is start at Frame 1,
“-e 14” is end at Frame 14
“-a” is render animation
if you want to render different sections from the same scene the just add -s 1 -e 14 -a for each section. e.g. -s 1 -e 12 -a -s 52 -e 69 -a
if you have more than 1 folder/directory that contains your files then just put a line like…
cd C:\Documents and Settings\Neil Hunt\My Documents\Data\Blender Command Test 2
…ie your new path name and continue.
once you’re done, save the file and replace the .txt with .bat
You don;t have to keep this in a particular place. When you want to render all those files just double click it and go to bed. (No need to set your alarm).
P.S. Gurus and others…please make any corrections if anything I said here is completely false. I just thought it might help any uninformed people like myself.