Aethera Replay Docs - Aethera.TV

Overview

Replay is the session-production record for Aethera. It keeps a timed, searchable account of what happened and gives creators useful edit points after play. A Replay session can contain:

authorized Aethera VTT activity such as scene changes, visible rolls, combat, and shared handouts,
available Aethera Voice participant and speaker events from a linked VTT campaign,
manual markers, tags, and review chapters,
references to archived Aethera videos, and
a versioned export package that Aether Forge can import.

Replay records structured production data. It does not record your screen, camera, or microphone by itself, and it never describes an unavailable audio or video source as captured media.

Quick start

Open Replay and sign in if prompted.
Choose New session, then enter a title. A short session label and description are optional.
If this is an Aethera VTT game, enter its stable Linked VTT campaign ID. Replay checks your role and discovers the campaign’s linked Voice room when one is available.
Choose Private, Members, Unlisted, or Public visibility, then select Create session.
Select the new session and choose Start capture before play begins.
Use Mark Moment during play, then Stop capture when the session ends.

Linking a campaign does not bypass VTT permissions. You must be the session or channel owner, an admin, or an authorized GM or Assistant GM for the linked campaign to control capture.

Capture and linked sources

Capture controls

Start capture starts the canonical session clock and adds a lifecycle event.
Pause stops active elapsed-time accounting while preserving the session.
Resume continues the same timeline after a pause.
Stop capture closes the live capture period and makes the session ready for review.

Replay orders events with a server-managed sequence and session offset. Source timestamps are retained when available, but the server clock is authoritative so a delayed integration cannot reorder the canonical story of the session.

VTT and Voice sources

An authorized linked VTT can contribute compact summaries for active scenes, player-visible rolls and chat, combat and initiative, ambience, explicitly shared handouts, token activity, fog, and lighting. Blind rolls, whispers, GM chat, private workspace data, direct AV signaling, and rejected VTT operations are not copied into participant or public output.

When the campaign has an Aethera Voice link and the Voice bridge is available, Replay can receive participant join/leave, speaker activity, and private recording-status summaries. The source card states whether Voice events are linked and whether track recording is actually available.

Session lifecycle

Archive retires a session from active use without deleting its linked VTT campaign or videos. Delete is a soft-delete lifecycle action and should be used carefully; it also leaves the original VTT, Voice, and video sources untouched.

Review the timeline

The Timeline review workspace groups events, markers, and chapters while keeping their session-relative times visible. Use the search box to find matching timeline summaries and the source filter to narrow the event list to VTT, Voice, manual markers, or Overlay controls.

Events show the source system, event type, time, and safe production summary.
Markers are creator-authored edit points with a type, visibility, and optional tags.
Chapters are named review sections placed at a session offset.

Timeline visibility is enforced on the server. A search or filter cannot reveal an event whose audience the signed-in viewer is not allowed to see.

Markers and chapters

Use Mark Moment while capture is active or during review. Give the moment a useful label, choose a type such as dramatic, funny, combat, lore, reveal, puzzle, roleplay, break, or custom, and add comma-separated tags when they will help an editor find it later.

Choose Make chapter on a marker to create a chapter at the same time with the same initial title and visibility.
Use Add chapter in the Chapters column to place a named chapter directly at the current session offset.
Markers created from a linked Overlay Studio project or Stream Tools join the same Replay timeline, so the live operator and the session producer can share edit points.

Specific labels beat generic ones. For example, “Selene reveals the false map” is much more useful in an edit than “good moment.”

Linked media and Aether Forge

Link an archived video

Enter a stable Aethera video ID under Linked sources and choose Link video. Replay verifies that you can access the video and stores a safe reference; it does not expose storage paths or treat the reference as a local editing file.

Download a Forge package

Finish the markers and chapters you want available to the editor.
Select Download Forge package.
Replay creates a durable export job and downloads a file named like session-title.aethera-replay.json.
In Aether Forge, import the Replay package and choose the matching local recording when prompted.

The package uses the aethera.replay.export.v1 schema and includes authorized session metadata, sanitized events, markers, chapters, media references, taxonomy information, and stable source IDs. Failed or cancelled export jobs appear below the handoff and can be retried; a queued or running job can be cancelled.

The package is structured session data, not the recording itself. Keep it private when its session details are private, and select the real local recording inside Forge.

Access and privacy

Replay requires a normal signed-in Aethera session.
Session visibility and per-event audience rules are separate. Private events remain private even if broader session metadata is visible.
Hidden GM activity and raw VTT websocket payloads are not copied into public or participant timelines.
Voice events are compact summaries. Replay does not store Voice export keys, signed URLs, local file paths, or raw audio URLs in timeline payloads.
Overlay browser sources receive a separate, sanitized public projection rather than Replay’s raw timeline data.
Creation, capture controls, markers, chapters, links, exports, archive, and delete actions are audited.

Current limits

Replay is structured-events-first. It does not create a screen, webcam, stream, or microphone recording on its own.
A linked Voice room can provide participant, speaker, and recording-status events, but mixed and per-participant audio tracks are unavailable unless Voice supplies real, authorized media assets.
Linked Aethera videos are references. Replay does not download them or expose private playback URLs in the session response.
The current Forge handoff is a versioned downloadable package, not automatic creation of a cloud Forge project.

Troubleshooting

Replay sends me to sign-in

Replay is an authenticated creator workspace. Sign in, then return to the Replay page.

The VTT source is missing or capture is denied

Confirm the numeric campaign ID and make sure your account is its GM or Assistant GM, the relevant owner, or an admin. A player role cannot control capture.

Voice says events are linked but tracks are unavailable

That is the expected truthful status when the room link exists but no authorized recording asset is available. Replay can still capture speaker and participant events for the timeline.

The timeline is empty

Check that the correct session is selected, capture was started, the intended source is linked, and the search and source filters are clear. Private source events also require the appropriate audience access.

Forge cannot find the recording

Replay exports metadata and edit points. Import the package, then select the matching local recording in Forge; a linked hosted-video reference is not a local file path.

Aethera Replay