how to render without displaying the rendering process

Question

Im starting with Blender and I would like to know if its possible to render an animation without Blender showing each frame while rendering as I think this could slow down the process a bit. Am I right?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

If your concern is performance, render using the Command line. This is for sure the most efficient way to render, since blender will not use any resources on the user interface.

The basic command is:

blender -b file.blend -x 1 -o //render -a 

-b

Render in the background with no user interface

file.blend

The path to the blend file you want to render

-x [0\1]

Set option to add the file extension (e.g. "avi" "jpg", "png" etc) to the end of the file, 0 means no and 1 means yes

-o

Path for the output file and file name (// if using relative paths)

-a

Render the whole animation from start to end using all the settings saved in the blend file.

There are a lot more options accessible when rendering using the command line. More info Here and Here.

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If you want to use blender normally, you can close all UV/Image editor windows and in the the Properties window set Scene->Render->Display to

Keep UI

The image is rendered to the Image Editor, but the UI remains the same. You will need to open the Image Editor manually to see the render result.