As we continue our grand pipeline integrations at High 5 Games we have a need to export animation from AE and package it up as an FBX file. We're exploring a few paths to this, including opening an AE project in C4D and then exporting FBX. We're also looking at writing our own FBX exporter with the the Python FBX SDK so we have better control of the export pipeline.

One of my developers is still living in the fantasy land of denial of trying to use Python directly with After Effects (and tried to do so via COM, like you can with Photoshop). I told him to give it up and accept that ExtendScript had to dump out the data and then Python could take over. In his Googling he found this article, written by a former Adobe employee (who seemed to be quite a interesting person):

So it appears that 14 years ago Python was binded to the PS and AE API's. I'm sure that if these plugins still exist now they certainly won't work with current versions of the apps, but I'm curious if it's still technically possible to generate bindings of the PS/AE C++ SDKs to CPython? Anyone from Adobe care to let me know if this is worth my time or a hopeless, foolish endeavor?

Currently, AE/PS are the only major DCC apps that do not have a Python scripting layer and/or API binding.

-louai