I am a total noob when it comes to art/modeling applications, so beware dumb questions ahead... Are there any programs that allow you to build a poly, apply a texture to it and then write the vertex data and texture coordinates out to file? I am just looking for something that I can quickly build sprites with. I really don't want to build these by hand (i.e. writing the texture coordinates by hand). Or at the very least a method to generate texture coordinates for arbitrary polygons could prove useful. Thanks,

If I am understand correctly this is what you want to do:

Get a 3D Modelling program (Anyone will do).

1. Create a plane.
2. Convert it to an editable poly.
3. UV Map and unwrap it.
4. Render and Save the UV Map to file (bmp, png, jpeg, etc).
5. Use Photoshop, or whatever, to paint the texture.
6. Assign the texture to the Poly Through the material editor in the 3D Modelling program as a bitmap.
7. Export the textured object with whatever extension you need.

Should be fairly straight forward, modelling softwares documentation should cover it all, otherwise I am sure there will be tutorials around the place. It is the same process a lot of people use for making hair and leaves for their models. To get transparency there are a few extra steps involved but they should be covered in any hair/leaves making tutorial.

Goodluck!