I usually do this using a shell/batch script using blender’s command line features. If you have blender setup in the path environment you can run blender by just typing blender at the command prompt. If you don’t you will need to type the path to the blender.exe or binary. The options you want after typing blender is
-b for background rendering.
The path and file name of the blend file you want to render.
[Optional] -S {scene name} you only need this if there are multiple scenes in the blend file. Note: the s is capital.
[Optional] -s ### and -e ### and -j ### s for start frame. e for end frame. j for jump or frame steps. You only need this to override what is set in the blend file.
-a or -f ### Use a to starts rendering the animation. Use f to render a single frame. You can do multiple frames by using comma between the numbers and no spaces. You can use — between two numbers to do a range of images.
Example: if I have a blend file called ren.blend in the temp folder at the root of the drive, and I want to render the animation it would be the following at the command prompt or each line of batch/shell script.
blender -b \temp\ren.blend -a
