Why is this background render/script for the command line not working? I'm trying to run Blender as a background process via batch process (or directly from the command line), neither seem to work.  Has anyone done this before?  I'm using the following pages for guidance:


https://www.blender.org/manual/advanced/command_line/arguments.html
https://www.blender.org/manual/render/workflows/command_line.html


When rendering, it should use the info in the .blend file (.PNG vs AVI, frame rate, etc.) by default.  For both of these, there is a file called ANIMATION.blend already created.

Here is the FIRST script, to render in the background:

cd\program files\blender foundation\blender
blender -b C:\pathtofile\ANIMATION.blend -o C:\pathtofile\renders\ -x


It gives me:

found bundled python: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\python
read blend: C:\pathtofile\ANIMATION.blend 

Blender quit


But does not actually render anything, either in /tmp, or the output file above, or the one in the .blend file already.

If I just render the animation via the in Blender GUI, it works fine.

Any ideas? Is it broken or am I doing something wrong?
You haven't given the command to render the animation, which is -a. The command line isn't just for rendering, so unless you explicitly tell blender you want to render, it won't.

Your first command should look like this:

blender -b C:\pathtofile\ANIMATION.blend -o C:\pathtofile\renders\ -x -a