AE CC2018 converts AE cc2014 projects

[Tero Ahlfors]

Because you’re opening an older project with a newer version. There’s probably some under the hood and compatibility stuff going on.

[Tero Ahlfors]

[Dave LaRonde] “I have a more cynical explanation: Adobe wants to keep people using the most current versions of its software, no matter what the users actually want to do. “

If this would be the case then why are there options to save to an earlier version?

[Tero Ahlfors]

[Dave LaRonde] “You can backsave just one version. You can’t backsave to CC2014 directly from CC 2018.”

Instead of whining about Adobe you should probably start using the software. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Michael Szalapski]

While you are correct that Dave is wrong (it saves back two versions and not just one – as demonstrated in your screenshot), that isn’t “CC 2014”; that’s AE version number 14 which is commonly called “CC 2017”. CC 2014 was version 13.0-13.2.

To answer the original question, the reason AE needs to save new project file formats is that lots of things change in big and small ways between versions. The amount of QA overhead it would take to try to eliminate issues between versions is not-unsubstantial. The more versions back they have to go, the more work it takes away from them adding new things to AE.

I’m not excusing Adobe, by the way, I’m just explaining the reason for the issue. The AE team is very small compared to what people think it is. Photoshop (which has an exponentially larger team) does have the ability to bounce between versions without issue. But they also have ten times as many people on the team. (I don’t know that it’s 10 times, it could be 50 for all I know – I just know it’s HUGE in comparison.)

– The Great Szalam
(The \’Great\’ stands for \’Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble\’)

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