How do I save an animation as one PNG file ?

I have done a model with a small visual effect in Blender. I select Format PNG and then animate it and as a result I expected one PNG file. Instead I get one file for each frame. So my 50 frame animation ends up in Blender creates 50 PNG files.

Now.

Can I make the whole animation in one PNG file in Blender?

If not, is there a not to complicated and free way to make this happen after I have done the model in Blender?

Is there a simple way to create PNG files with another free modeling/animation tool?

You exported an image sequence, which is considered state of the art for various reasons. You generated uncompressed material in a high resolution. With those images you can basically do anything so keep them for the future and if you exported to RGBA and not only RGB you even have an alpha channel now.

You either need to load the image sequence into blenders sequencer and go from there, or make a video in a 3rd party tool.
I prefer VirtualDub, there you open your first frame and it imports the whole sequence, you choose your audio, framerate, video resolution and codec and save it as avi.

Are you familier with the Sequencer in Blender?

Select the folder containing your png sequence and drop it on the timeline. After that you can render it out as a Quicktime sequence or whatever you choose by selecting the output from the same menu you selected the png output. Hit the animate button and in no time you’ll have your sequence.

Blizzer,

for clarification are you talking about an animated png file? If so there is probably some software available to produce these from the source png files that blender creates. One branch of animated png’s is mng found here.

In future blender will prob support these, possibly thru an add-on .

Yes, I am talking about an animated png file. I see on webpages animated icons that have .png extension. I wanted to do one myself.

Thanks all for the answere. I will check if any of there things can help me.

animated png is an unofficial extension to png and can not be made with blender. As arexma said image sequences are standard in compositing/editing, who uses animated pngs anyway? why choose it over a movie format?

You can save an image sequence from Blender then open it as layers in GIMP then save it as an animated gif. But if you absolutely need APNG then you can get the plug in for GIMP if you can make it work or… get the APNG plugin for some other aplication like PS or else.

Using VirtualDub APNG Mod (google it) you can load PNG image sequence, set Video->Frame Rate and then you’ll have choice:

File->Export->Animated PNG
or
File->Save as AVI