A Python script to determine the After Effects Version used to save the project.
This script is rewritten and now actually calculates the project version instead of just comparing a HEX string in a data table.
After some more data analysis I finally understood how the project version is encoded in the project file. See the analysis below.
I have kept the JSON data for further analysis and to look up the year the software version was released.
py afx-version-check.py PROJECTFILE.aep
Under the folder aftereffects_projects there are some project files to test the script
For example: py afx-version-check.py aftereffects_projects/2023_23-3-0_build53.aep
Example: 17.0.2 (Win) (Build 26) (Structure is Major.Minor.Patch (OS) (Build) BETA )
At offset 36 in the project file we get a HEX string of 0B 08 16 1A
| Bits | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Bit 1-8 | Build |
| Bit 10 | If 0 then BETA |
| Bit 12-15 | Patch- or Bugfix-Version |
| Bit 16-19 | Minor-Version |
| Bit 27-31 & 20-22 | Major-Version is split up. MAJOR-A and MAJOR-B have to be merged. |
| Bit 23-26 | Operation System (Win = 1100, Mac = 1101, Mac Arm 64 = 1110 ) |