Rendering from the command line

Your scene file determines whether you render a single frame or an animation. You can render from a shell or a command line. Before rendering, you may want to close all applications, including Maya, to maximize the amount of memory available for rendering.

When you render from a command line, you can set flags that override some of the Render Settings, saving time during test renders.

For more information, see Render from the command line .

To get quick renderer-specific information

Type:
```
Render -r rendername -help
```
where rendername is the name of the renderer.

Use the following options:
- mr = mental ray
- sw = software renderer
- hw = hardware renderer
- vr = vector renderer
- file = the file within which the renderer is specified
  NoteIf you get help on a file (-r file -help), only the flags common to all renderers, not a specific renderer, are shown. If you want renderer-specific information, you must specify the renderer.

All flags have a short description. Each flag corresponds to the appropriate section of the Render Settings window. See the Render Settings documentation for more detailed information on each option.

To obtain a complete list of command line Render options, from a shell or command line

Type:
```
Render -help
```

To render a scene with a specific renderer from a shell or command line

Type:
```
Render -r <renderername> <options> scene
```
TipYou may need to provide the -proj flag when issuing the render command to specify where the scene file is located. For example, type:
Render <options> <projName> scene -proj

To render a scene with the renderer specified in the file from a shell or command line

Whichever renderer is specified in the file is used to render the scene.
Type:
```
Render -r file
```

To batch render using user-defined region rendering

Use the -reg flag. For example:
```
render -r mr -reg 0 100 0 100 scene.ma
```
where -reg 0 100 0 100 indicates the region to be rendered in pixels (left, right, bottom, top).

The above command renders the lower left 100 x100 pixel region of the scene.