# Playback
Playback materialises a recording (or scene) into the world as packet NPCs. Viewers within `playback.view-distance` see the NPC walk, fight, mine, talk — everything that was captured.
---
## Playing a recording
```
/recap play <recording>
```
Spawns one NPC at the command sender's location and starts ticking through the recording. NPC despawns when the recording ends (unless looping).
---
## Playing a scene
```
/recap play <scene>
```
Spawns every entry in the scene at the appropriate offset and start delay. See [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Scenes]] for scene composition.
Larger scenes report progress in two stages: `Loading scene 'X'…` fires immediately, then `Now playing 'X' (N actors)` once actor initialisation finishes. Small scenes skip the follow-up so chat isn't double-spammed.
---
## Looping
```
/recap play <recording> true
/recap play <scene> true
```
For a single recording, the NPC resets to frame 0 on end-of-stream. For a scene, **every** entry loops independently — short clips don't depopulate an ambient scene.
---
## Playback controls
These commands only appear in tab-complete while something is playing:
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| `/recap pause` | Pause playback. |
| `/recap resume` | Resume playback. |
| `/recap seek <tick>` | Jump to a specific tick. |
| `/recap speed <multiplier>` | Run faster (e.g. `2.0`) or slower (e.g. `0.5`). |
The targeted session is the one closest to your current position.
---
## Stopping
```
/recap stopall
```
Ends every active playback session. `/recap stop` also works: when you have no active recording or hijack, it falls through to stop the nearest playback session — no need for `stopall` just to end a single `/recap play`.
---
## Duplicate-play guard
`/recap play <scene>` and `/recap scene <name> play` refuse to start a second session of the same scene if one is already playing. Use `/recap stopall` (or wait for the existing session to finish) before re-playing.
---
## Viewer culling
NPCs are only sent to players within `playback.view-distance` (config). Players entering range mid-playback receive a fresh-state spawn so the NPC appears at the right pose/equipment/position. Leaving range removes the NPC client-side; the actor keeps ticking server-side.
---
## See Also
- [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Recording]] — creating recordings
- [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Scenes]] — combining recordings
- [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Hijack]] — interactive variant