Yet Another Command Line Render Question

Support Basics & Interface
#21

Does OS X have a shell? If no shell, then no command line…

of course it does. os X is an X server (kindof) with Aqua as the “window manager”/gui running on top of a modified BSD kernel. Terminal is vital to many OSXers. But the binary version of blender is an app (.app is a special folder type), and I can’t figure out how to actually run the compiled version of blender from the terminal from within this app folder. I mean I can start the program, but I don’t have access to the regular terminal options (like -h, -b etc).

#22

What I mean is you must have access to a windows-like shell to run an executable. Are there any Mac programs like that?

Did macs ever get more than one mouse key?

#23

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/
yes. mighty mouse has 4 programmable buttons.
windows-like? eewwwwww!
a real terminal/bash shell, yes!
Don’t ask me any more apple questions. They have an awesome website.

#24

LOL, let’s not start that…

So, you’re probably missing a switch or something

#25

It would be good if someone who knew what they were doing (otherwise I’d do it myself) could write this up for any relevant OS’s and submit it for the Blenderart #3 - Rendering special.

https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60686

Any takers? This little-known feature (well to me anyway) is pure gold.

#26

I wish I had the time, but the deadline coincides with a conference! Whoever does it, it would be nice to mention that command line is a great tool to use with Windows Remote Desktop (maybe so in other OS’s, I don’t know). Blender doesn’t work well with remote desktop because of the OpenGL. I start 2 to 4 command line instances (depending on complexity) on one or more remote computers while I model or render on my main computer. Multiple instances seem to utilize the CPU better, but I don’t have any proof of this. To me, this method is better than a render farm since I can do whatever I want on the computer.

#27

I finally figured out the command line rendering from OS X.
From the terminal:
Navigate into the application contents folder

/Applications/Blender/Blender.app/Contents/MacOS

Then run ./blender -b, or whatever switch you want.

#28

This is looking like the topic for a whole article rather than just a tip, seems this command linie rendering is quite powerful…another Blender dark horse :wink:

#29

It could be a tip or an article, depending on how detailed you get. It also sounds like it might be an article from several authors. I couldn’t address command line use with Mac or Linux.