# Recording A recording follows one player and saves everything they do to a single file. Start one, let it run, stop it, and you have something you can play back whenever you like. ## Making one ``` /recap start finals-round-3 ``` That records you. Name someone else, or everyone: ``` /recap start finals-round-3 @a ``` Each person gets their own file, named after them: `finals-round-3_Steve`, `finals-round-3_Alex`, and so on. When you're done: ``` /recap stop ``` The recording saves straight away and Recap tells you what it was called. `/recap stopall` ends everyone's at once, which is the one you want at the end of an event. If it turned out to be a false start, `/recap cancel` bins it instead of saving. `/recap cancelall` does that for everybody. ## What gets captured Near enough everything a player does, every tick: - Where they are, where they're looking, and how fast they're moving - Whether they're sneaking, sprinting, swimming, flying, on fire, invisible or glowing - What's in their hands and on their body, plus their whole inventory - Swings, item use, critical hits, damage taken, totem pops, riptide - Placing and breaking blocks, mining progress, editing signs, opening and closing chests - Getting in and out of boats, minecarts and anything else rideable - Getting into and out of bed - Nearby mobs, including what they're wearing and how hurt they are - Particles and sounds - Their skin, so the NPC looks like them Other plugins can add their own effects to this list. See [[Recap/Developers/Packet Capture]] if you're writing one. Two things are opt-in: redstone and pistons moving on their own (`--environment`), and voice chat (`--voice-chat`). ## The flags | Flag | Short | What it does | |---|---|---| | `--radius <n>` | `-r <n>` | How much scenery and how many mobs to capture around the player. Defaults to 16 blocks, maximum 128, `0` for player only. | | `--scene <name>` | `-s <name>` | File each recording into an existing scene as it stops. | | `--environment` | `--env` | Also record blocks that move on their own nearby, like pistons and redstone. | | `--uncapped` | | Stop Recap limiting how many block changes it records per tick. For big, fast contraptions. | They combine in any order: ``` /recap start 300-fight @a --radius 32 -s big-battle ``` ### Capturing the surroundings By default Recap captures the ground and scenery around the player, 16 blocks out, plus any mobs in range. That's what lets a fight recorded in one arena replay correctly in an empty one: the scenery comes with it, drawn just for the people watching, without touching a single real block. Widen it for a big space: ``` /recap start arena-round1 --radius 24 ``` Or turn it off if you only care about the player: ``` /recap start solo-clip --radius 0 ``` Bigger numbers mean bigger files. 16 suits most things. Only go higher for genuinely wide arenas. To change it for every recording, set `recording.capture-radius` in the config. ### Capturing redstone and pistons Blocks that move by themselves aren't recorded unless you ask for them: ``` /recap start contraption --environment ``` That picks up pistons, dust, lamps, repeaters, comparators and observers near the player, so a contraption replays in step. For something large and fast, add `--uncapped`. ### Filing into a scene as you go If you already know several recordings belong together, name the scene up front: ``` /recap start big-battle @a --scene arena-replay ``` Each recording joins that scene the moment it stops. The scene has to exist first. ## File sizes Recordings are compressed. A minute of ordinary play is usually tens of kilobytes; a busy fight where inventories keep changing might reach a few hundred. If one comes out unexpectedly huge, look at what people were carrying. Items whose data changes constantly used to bloat recordings badly before v0.1.4 fixed it. ## See Also - [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Playback]], playing recordings back - [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Scenes]], combining recordings - [[Recap/Server Owners/Features/Hijack]], fighting a recording