Getting project settings from an .aep file

[bolichero_1999]

Hi there,

I am developing a very simple cocoa-applescript application to control a renderfarm. Actually, I already finished and it works. But now I am trying to make it smoother. I'd like to get basic information (start rendering frame, end rendering frame, output path, etc) directly from the .aep binary file. I was reading parts of the SDK docs and I'd say I should focus on the AEGPs, but I am not sure if that would work from my appplication.

So to make it short, is it actually posible to get info from an .aep binary file outside After Effects?

Thanks!

[Todd_Kopriva]

> So to make it short, is it actually posible to get info from an .aep binary file outside After Effects?

In general, no.

[joejoe_jack]

You could try running a script from the command line but it might just be simpler to demand arguments from the user. Will you be offering this script publicly? I would certainly be interested in it.

[bolichero_1999]

Well the idea was to render(farm) any file saved from our AE workstations without any added user input: just open and render. So I guess maybe I should look more into saving in XML format.

Now I am getting the needed data from the regular log file, so I have to wait 20-30 seconds until the font syncing is finished and the first render node wirtes its log, and only then finally it gets the info I need to give output info to the user: progress bar, how many rendernodes are active, when is the render finished, etc...

About making it public, the application now works and its stable, but only in our environment, so it'd need some work to make it work in any OSX environment. But I will ask my boss anyway to see what he thinks.