Command line rendering in OSX

Support Lighting and Rendering
1

Hi! I have a problem with the command line rendering as described in the manual here. I realize the problem is probably more OSX-related than Blender-related, but when searching I mostly found examples for Windows, so if there is an OSX-user who knows about this I’d really appreciate some help.

Basically, the terminal just says that there is no such command as ‘blender’. I’ve tried both adding an alias and not using one. I admit I’m not that experienced using the terminal in OSX (but I have experience with it in Linux). I’ve used the correct path. I’ve looked up how to add aliases on the Apple support pages (which seems a little different than in the Blender manual?)

Also, if I do get it to work, how do I notice if it’s a background process?

2

Have you tried the suggestions here http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2078/how-to-use-blender-command-lines-in-osx

3

Upload a screenshot of your terminal window where you’re getting the error.

For me, I usually do the following:
In the terminal, type:

cd

…then drag the blender app into the terminal window, which gives you something like:

cd /Applications/blender/blender.app

…then you add the following after the “.app” (case sensitive):

/Contents/MacOS

…which gives you, for example:

cd /Applications/blender/blender.app/Contents/MacOS

…PRESS RETURN!
…Now, to run blender, you type (on a new line):

./blender

…and add all the other stuff you want for your render, e.g.:

./blender -b /Volumes/myDrive/blendFile.blend -a

(Note that you can get the directory to your blend file by dropping it into the terminal window at the appropriate moment as well)

I have a small droplet-style app that I created based on this: http://www.andrewandoru.com/2010/03/17/labs-aerender/

4

FWIW, here’s the alias statement I have in my ~/.bash_profile file on the Mac i use:

alias 'blender'='/Applications/Blender.app/Contents/MacOS/blender'
5

Thanks all of you. I haven’t had the time to try yet, but I’m guessing from your suggestions that the /Contents/MacOS/blender addition should make it work. I will try and report back. Thanks again!