Reel

Windows desktop app for managing CS2 demos, scoring your rounds, previewing clips in 3D, and recording them with HLAE.

Core (Python)

cd core
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\pip install -e ".[dev]"
.\.venv\Scripts\reel-core doctor
.\.venv\Scripts\reel-core parse path\to\match.dem --player <steamid64> --json

update-tools downloads current HLAE, FFmpeg, and CS Demo Manager’s MIT server.dll from GitHub.

UI (Electron)

npm install
npm run dev

First launch: open Doctor, confirm SteamID, Scan folders, click a demo to parse.

Preview

Preview replays a waiting clip in-app as a pose dump — not HLAE, and not a video file. Scrubbing is playhead-pure: guns, nades, flashes, planted/dropped C4, and death falls follow the demo tick.

It reads models from your local CS2 install (Source2Viewer → %LOCALAPPDATA%\cs2-reel\). Preview quality is remembered (first launch is Low):

• Low — untextured collision hull
• Medium / High — that hull tinted from the local radar overlay (High does not load CS2’s world mesh; that export filled disk and froze the GPU)
• Viewmodel default is CS-like (offset / FOV / scale). VM edits it live.

Clips that have already finished loading stay in memory, so switching back does not re-export. Caches stay in AppData; Valve textures are never committed. Weapon skins are 64px nearest albedos, never native 4K. Leftover High/world dumps under maps/*/high are deleted automatically.

On Doctor, Cache Preview weapons warms the gun/agent GLBs so the first clip is not a cold export. Missing maps fall back to a flat ground plane.

Recording

Clip video still requires CS2 + HLAE (not a no-game renderer). MIRV (mirv_streams) is HLAE’s in-game capture: Reel injects those commands while CS2 plays the demo.

HLAE must match your CS2 build. Doctor only shows Update when GitHub has a newer HLAE zip than the one you already have. If you are already on the latest HLAE and CS2 is newer, wait for advancedfx releases — use Watch + OBS in the meantime. Record is still allowed and may crash.

By default Record runs unattended: the game window stays on screen in the background — do not minimize it. Parse, scoring, and Preview do not need the game open.