How to render an animation in Blender, step by step

Set the frame range and frame rate in Output Properties, choose an output folder and an image format such as PNG or OpenEXR, then run Render > Render Animation (Ctrl+F12). Blender writes one file per frame. Render to an image sequence rather than straight to a video file: if Blender crashes, you lose one frame instead of the whole render. Assemble the frames into a video at the end.

How do you render an animation in Blender, step by step?

Render one test frame first. Press F12 on a representative frame and check the lighting, the noise and the time shown at the top of the render window. Fixing a problem now costs one frame; fixing it after the animation costs all of them.
Set the format. In Output Properties > Format, check the resolution, set the percentage back to 100% if you lowered it for tests, and choose the Frame Rate. Changing the frame rate later changes the timing of the whole animation.
Set the frame range. In Output Properties > Frame Range, enter Frame Start and Frame End. These are the same values as the start and end fields in the Timeline. Step renders every nth frame, which is useful for a quick motion check.
Choose where the frames go. In the Output panel, the first field is the path and file name prefix. The default, /tmp\, is easy to lose on Windows. Use a path relative to the .blend file such as //render/shot010_: the two slashes mean "next to the .blend", and Blender adds a four-digit frame number, giving shot010_0001.png, shot010_0002.png and so on.
Pick an image format. PNG or OpenEXR, as explained below.
Save and launch. Save the .blend, then choose Render > Render Animation or press Ctrl+F12. Blender renders the frames one after another and writes each file as soon as it is done. Esc stops the render; the frames already written stay on disk.
Assemble the video. Once every frame is on disk, turn the sequence into an MP4 with the Video Sequencer or ffmpeg.

Should you render to a video file or to an image sequence?

Blender can write a video file directly, but for anything longer than a few seconds an image sequence is the safer choice. If Blender crashes or the computer restarts at frame 180 of 250, a video file is usually unreadable and everything is lost. With an image sequence you keep 179 finished frames and resume from there. Images also let you re-render a single broken frame, change the encoding later without rendering again, and split the work between several machines.

PNG is lossless and readable everywhere. Choose RGBA if you need transparency, and 16-bit colour depth if you plan heavy grading. The colour management view transform (AgX by default since Blender 4.0) is applied to the file, so it looks the way it did in the render window.
OpenEXR stores scene-linear, high dynamic range data without the view transform, which is what compositing and grading software expects. OpenEXR MultiLayer can also hold render passes in a single file per frame. The files are large.

Avoid JPEG for final frames: every save loses detail, and it cannot store transparency.

How do you resume an interrupted render?

In the Output panel, untick Overwrite. When you run Render Animation again, Blender skips every frame that already exists in the folder and renders only the missing ones. If the interruption happened while a file was being written, delete that last file first: it may be incomplete. The Placeholders option creates an empty file as soon as a frame starts: several Blender instances pointed at the same folder then skip each other's frames instead of rendering them twice.

How do you turn the image sequence into a video?

With Blender. Create a new file with File > New > Video Editing. In the sequencer, use Add > Image/Sequence, open the render folder, press A to select every frame and confirm. Set the same frame rate and frame range as the original scene, set the output to a video format (FFmpeg Video in Blender 4.x) with an MPEG-4 container and H.264 codec, then run Render Animation again. Encoding takes seconds, not hours, since nothing is being rendered.

With ffmpeg. From the render folder:

ffmpeg -framerate 24 -i shot010_%04d.png -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 18 shot010.mp4

%04d matches the four-digit frame number. If the sequence does not start at frame 1, add -start_number 101 (or your first frame) before -i. -pix_fmt yuv420p keeps the file playable in browsers and most players, and a lower -crf means higher quality and a bigger file.

How long will the animation take to render?

Multiply the time of one frame by the number of frames. 250 frames at 2 minutes per frame, a 10-second shot at 25 fps, add up to 8 h 20 on a single computer. Time your test frame on the heaviest part of the shot, since frame times vary with what is on screen. If the total is too long, reduce the time per frame first; the guide to rendering faster in Cycles goes through the settings that matter, and the render time calculator does the arithmetic for other frame counts.

Can you render the animation without opening Blender?

Yes, with background mode. Blender runs from a terminal without its interface, which leaves more memory for the render:

blender -b shot.blend -a               # the whole frame range
blender -b shot.blend -s 101 -e 200 -a  # frames 101 to 200

The output path, format and range saved in the .blend are used. Options are read in order, so put -s and -e before -a.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Blender only save one image instead of the animation?

F12 renders the current frame only, and Image > Save As saves that single frame. To render every frame, use Render > Render Animation (Ctrl+F12). Blender then writes each frame to the output folder automatically, with no Save step.

Where does Blender save rendered animation frames?

In the path set in Output Properties > Output. The default is /tmp\, which on Windows usually means a tmp folder at the root of the drive. Set a path starting with // to save next to the .blend file.

How do I render an animation with a transparent background?

Tick Transparent in Render Properties > Film, then save to PNG with RGBA colour or to OpenEXR. Video formats such as H.264 in MP4 cannot store transparency.

Is the procedure the same for Eevee?

Yes. Frame range, output folder, file format and Render Animation work the same way with Eevee and Cycles. Only the render settings differ.

Rendering the animation on TURNA

When a scene is already well optimised and the frame count is what takes the time, the remaining lever is rendering several frames at once. TURNA does this for Blender: an add-on (Blender 4.0 to 5.2, Cycles and Eevee) sends the scene in one click, and the frames are split across 1, 2, 4 or 8 GPUs in parallel, RTX 5090 first and RTX 4090 when none is free. The add-on shows the estimated cost before anything starts. Prices start at €2.90 per hour, billed on the time actually used, with a 30-second minimum, and new accounts get €25 of free credit. A single still image is still rendered by one machine, so the gain is on animations. Tiers and worked examples are on the Blender render farm page.