Yes, but hoping for other options or to hear from others how they do it.
EDIT
OK well I had some time to troll around the internet this morning and finally found a descent solution, though it would still be nice to hear how others do this or find a plugin for Blender that does this (which would cut down my steps even further).
Here's my process:
1. Model something in Blender
2. Animate the object and render each frame to a PNG file with RGBA (that RGBA distinction is important).
3. Select all of the PNG frame files and drag them in to the layer window in GIMP. I have a issue withthis where the files get imported out of order at times, which requires me to rearrange them. It would be ideal if I could have GIMP automatically rearrange layers by alphanumerically by name. I've not had luck finding a solution to this dilemma.
4. Run a script call tile-layers.scm which will automatically arrange each layer/frame into a grid that you specify the number of columns and rows or it automatically fits them into as much of a square as possible. Awesome tool.
The link is:
http://ffaat.pointclark.net/incoming/scripts/tile-layers.scm
or the text is (just save text file as SCM extension and copy to GIMP scripts directory)
; tile-layers.scm
; by Saul Goode and Rob Antonishen
; http://ffaat.pointclark.net
; Version 1.0 (20100430)
; Description
;
; This script will tile layers so that each layer is centered
; in a non-overlapping panel in a manner that all layers are visible.
; It allows specifying the width, height, or will best fit to a square.
; There are options for spacing the images out and drawing a grid.
;
; This started as Saul Goode's mosaicize script
; http://flashingtwelve.brickfilms.com/GIMP/Scripts/mosaicize.scm
; License:
;
; This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
; the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
; (at your option) any later version.
;
; This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
; GNU General Public License for more details.
;
; The GNU Public License is available at
; http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
(define (script-fu-tile-layers image drawable mode size spacing drawgrid-flag gridcolour)
(let* (
(layers (vector->list (cadr (gimp-image-get-layers image))))
(max-bounds 0)
(num-cols (cond
((= mode 0) (trunc (+ (sqrt (length layers)) 0.99999))) ; Square
((= mode 1) (min size (length layers))); Specify Across
((= mode 2) (trunc (+ (/ (length layers) (min (length layers) size) 0.99999)))))) ; Specify Down
(num-rows (cond
((or (= mode 0) (= mode 1)) (trunc (+ (/ (length layers) num-cols) 0.99999)))
((= mode 2) (min (length layers) size))))
(window 0)
(grid 0)
(row 0)
(col 0)
)
(gimp-context-push)
(gimp-image-undo-group-start image)
(set! max-bounds
(let loop ((layer layers)
(max-width 0)
(max-height 0))
(if (null? layer)
(list max-width max-height)
(loop (cdr layer)
(max max-width (car (gimp-drawable-width (car layer))))
(max max-height (car (gimp-drawable-height (car layer))))
))))
(set! window (car (gimp-layer-new image
(+ (* num-cols (car max-bounds)) (* num-cols spacing) spacing)
(+ (* num-rows (cadr max-bounds)) (* num-rows spacing) spacing)
(+ 1 (* (car (gimp-image-base-type image)) 2))
"Frames"
100
NORMAL-MODE)))
(gimp-image-add-layer image window -1)
(gimp-image-lower-layer-to-bottom image window)
(gimp-image-resize-to-layers image)
(gimp-layer-set-offsets window 0 0)
(gimp-drawable-fill window BACKGROUND-FILL)
(let loop ((layer (reverse layers))
(row 0)
(col 0))
(if (pair? layer)
(begin
(let* (
(x (+ (* col (+ (car max-bounds) spacing)) spacing))
(y (+ (* row (+ (cadr max-bounds) spacing)) spacing))
)
(gimp-layer-set-offsets (car layer)
(+ x (/ (- (car max-bounds)
(car (gimp-drawable-width (car layer))))
2))
(+ y (/ (- (cadr max-bounds)
(car (gimp-drawable-height (car layer))))
2)))
(set! col (+ col 1))
(if (= col num-cols)
(begin
(set! col 0)
(set! row (+ row 1))
)
)
(loop (cdr layer)
row
col)))))
(when (and (equal? drawgrid-flag TRUE) (> spacing 0))
(set! grid (car (gimp-layer-new image
(+ (* num-cols (car max-bounds)) (* num-cols spacing) spacing)
(+ (* num-rows (cadr max-bounds)) (* num-rows spacing) spacing)
(+ 1 (* (car (gimp-image-base-type image)) 2))
"Grid"
100
NORMAL-MODE)))
(gimp-image-add-layer image grid 0)
(gimp-image-raise-layer-to-top image grid)
(plug-in-grid RUN-NONINTERACTIVE image grid spacing (+ (car max-bounds) spacing) (trunc (/ spacing 2)) gridcolour 255
spacing (+ (cadr max-bounds) spacing) (trunc (/ spacing 2)) gridcolour 255
0 0 0 gridcolour 0))
(gimp-image-undo-group-end image)
(gimp-context-pop)
(gimp-displays-flush)
)
)
(script-fu-register "script-fu-tile-layers"
"Tile Layers..."
"Translate layers into a grid."
"Saul Goode and Rob Antonishen"
"Saul Goode and Rob Antonishen"
"April 2010"
"*"
SF-IMAGE "Image" 0
SF-DRAWABLE "Drawable" 0
SF-OPTION "Mode" '("Best Fit to Square" "Specify Across" "Specify Down")
SF-ADJUSTMENT "Number of grid cells" '(2 1 100 1 5 0 0)
SF-ADJUSTMENT "Spacing between cells" '(0 0 25 1 5 0 0)
SF-TOGGLE "Draw Grid" FALSE
SF-COLOR "Grid Colour" (car (gimp-context-get-foreground))
)
(script-fu-menu-register "script-fu-tile-layers"
"<Image>/Filters/Map"
)
5. Remove the white background layer and flatten the image then save as PNG.
6. Use your sprite sheet in dbpro
Not to bad, but would love to do this directly from Blender. Maybe someday I'll learn python to do so.
