v0.2.1

Bugfix

Terrain capture no longer duplicates the entire captured terrain tile set into every emitted frame during live capture replay. Previously this made every frame file huge (identical size regardless of tick) and could crash the viewer trying to load a long capture. Terrain is now captured once per surface instead.

v0.2.0

Save Timelapse v0.2.0 (Alpha)

First public release. Expect bugs and breaking changes between versions.

Highlights

• Camera auto-follow: the viewer now gradually pans and zooms out to
  keep your whole factory in frame as it grows, the way TLBE's camera does,
  tracking only what you've actually built
• Per-session capture folders: each playthrough now gets its own
  folder under script-output/save-timelapse/, easier to browse by hand
  than the old flat, tagged-filename scheme
• Optional terrain and player tracking: natural terrain/scatter
  rendering and a live player-position marker, both opt-in
• Checksums and format versioning: a corrupted or outdated capture
  file is detected, not silently misread
• Adjustable playback speed and frame interval

See changelog.txt for the full mod-side list.

Getting started

Download save-timelapse.exe below (or build from source with
cargo build --release), or get the mod from the
Factorio mod portal.

v0.1.0

Save Timelapse v0.1.0

First tagged release. ⚠️ Alpha the core pipeline works end to end, but expect bugs, missing features, and breaking changes between releases.

Build an interactive timelapse of your Factorio factory from save files you already have, or while you play.

Getting started

Download save-timelapse-v0.1.0-windows-x64.zip below, unzip it anywhere, and run save-timelapse.exe. No flags, nothing to install it asks what you want to do:

1. Update my timelapse from live capture for saves with the save-timelapse-live-capture mod setting turned on.
2. Build a timelapse from existing save files reconstructs a timelapse from saves already sitting in your saves folder, including autosaves.

Either way it opens the interactive viewer automatically when it's done. If it can't find your Factorio install or saves folder, it asks for the path in plain language instead of failing silently.

Features

• 📦 Build timelapses from existing save files, including autosaves from a factory started months ago
• 🎮 Live capture: one baseline snapshot, then only incremental construction events afterward, tagged per playthrough so saves from different games never get mixed into one timelapse
• 🗺️ Interactive viewer: pan, zoom, timeline scrubbing, play/pause, home/end navigation
• 🌍 Multi-surface support tab switches between Nauvis, platforms, and other planets
• ⚡ Chunked renderer with automatic level-of-detail rendering and parallel frame loading
• 🔧 One executable, no Python, other command-line tools, or FFmpeg required

Known limitations

• Live capture only covers play from the moment it's turned on Factorio keeps no placement history to recover retroactively
• Windows only for this release
• See the Roadmap for what's planned next

What's included in the zip

• save-timelapse.exe the interactive tool
• viewer.exe the timelapse viewer, launched automatically by save-timelapse.exe
• mod/ the Factorio mod, needed for both live capture and the from-saves export flow (drop it in your Factorio mods folder to enable live capture; the from-saves flow stages it automatically)

Full changelog: https://github.com/rephyr/save-timelapse/commits/v0.1.0