# Overview Recap records what your players actually do, then plays it back as NPCs that move, fight, and act exactly the way the real players did. That gets you three things. A replay of a match you can walk around inside. A cinematic built out of real gameplay instead of hand-animated NPCs. And a boss fight where the thing you're fighting is a recording of a real player, and the fight itself gets recorded too. It handles hundreds of players recording at once, so you can capture a whole event and sort it out afterwards. ## What you can do with it **Replay a match.** Record everyone in an arena, then play it back later and watch it from any angle. Nobody has to be online. `/recap start finals @a` … `/recap stop` … `/recap play finals` **Build a scene.** Combine several recordings into one performance, each starting at its own time and its own spot. Useful for a busy spawn, a staged battle, or a trailer. **Fight the recording.** A hijack turns the NPCs into things you can actually hit. They fight back with whatever the recorded player did, drop their inventory when they die, and your side of the fight gets recorded too. ## What gets captured Pretty much everything a player does: where they are, where they're looking, what they're holding and wearing, swings and hits, damage taken, particles and sounds, opening chests, editing signs, getting in and out of boats and minecarts, sleeping, and their full inventory. Recordings are compressed, so a long session doesn't turn into a huge file. ## Worth knowing - **Playback costs almost nothing.** The NPCs are drawn for players nearby rather than being real entities the server has to tick. They only become real when you hijack a scene. - **A recording can play anywhere.** By default Recap also captures the ground around the player, so a fight recorded in one arena still looks right when you replay it somewhere else. `--radius 0` turns that off if you only want the player. - **Ambient scenes stay busy.** Play a scene with looping on and each recording restarts on its own, so short clips don't leave the area empty. - **Effects come along.** Other plugins can register their own effects so they replay too. Lectern's cutscenes, camera work and screen shake already work this way. ## What you need | | | |---|---| | Server | Paper 1.21.4 to 26.1.2 | | Java | 21 | Nothing else to install. Everything Recap depends on ships inside the plugin. ## Optional extras | Plugin | What it adds | |---|---| | Bookshelf | Shared utilities and command handling | | Lectern | Replays cinematic effects, cutscenes, screen shake and the rest | ## See Also - [[Recap/Server Owners/Commands]], every command with examples - [[Recap/Server Owners/Configuration]], the settings file - [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Recording]], recording in detail - [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Playback]], playing recordings and scenes - [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Hijack]], fighting a recording - [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/World Snapshots]], saving and restoring blocks - [[Recap/Developers/Overview]], for plugin developers