Zenith

Play your real Factorio game in 3D, with an angled camera close to your character and a 3D model for every entity.

This isn't a remake. Factorio itself still runs the game, unchanged, as a headless server with no window. A bridge mod streams the live game state to a separate 3D client built in Godot 4. The client draws it and sends your input back. Saves, research, belts, trains, biters and Space Age all work the way the real game does them, because the real game is the one doing them.

You need your own copy of Factorio 2.1. Space Age is supported but not required.

Get the latest release from the Releases page:

• Zenith--windows.zip or Zenith--linux.zip: the game. Unzip it anywhere and start Zenith.exe (Windows) or Zenith.x86_64 (Linux); START HERE.txt inside says the rest. The bridge mod and the server scripts come with it.
• factorio-3d-bridge_.zip: the bridge mod on its own, for a server you run yourself.
• cinematic-camera_.zip: an optional camera add-on (free camera, tracking shots, timelapses, recording). Drop the zip, as it is, into Zenith's addons folder. Its source and guide: Zenith-Cinematic-Camera.

• Your own saves. Load any save from the main menu: the client copies it, starts headless Factorio and takes over your save's character, with its inventory, armour and logistic requests. Your original save is never touched.
• Factorio's interface, rebuilt in 3D. The inventory, crafting, machine screens, research, map and minimap, blueprints and planners, the circuit network, train schedules, logistics, Factoriopedia, alerts and tooltips. They are drawn with Factorio's own GUI art and fonts from your install, and use Factorio's hotkeys.
• A 3D model for every entity in the base game and Space Age, over 400 files with their variants. Belts, inserters, walls, logistic chests, the character and biters are converted from the 3D-printable models Wube released. 39 base-game buildings and vehicles (assemblers, furnaces, chests, power, oil, trains and more) use the textured models of FUE5, the fan remake of Factorio in Unreal Engine 5. Everything else is modelled to match Factorio's own sprites, and coloured from them.
• The world, live. Items ride the belts, inserters swing, machines animate, trains and cars drive, biters attack and turrets fire. Day and night with working lamps. Factorio's own terrain textures, water, cliffs, decoratives, sky and clouds for each planet, and Factorio's sounds played by its own rules.
• Space Age. Space platforms, travel between planets, Vulcanus, Fulgora, Gleba and Aquilo, quality and spoilage.

Press F6 at any time to jump to Factorio's own camera angle for comparison.

This is an early release, and it still has rough edges:

• Some models still differ from Factorio's sprites in shape or colour (the inventory in docs/ASSET-INVENTORY.md says which), and several animations haven't been watched against a real game yet.
• Big bases are heavy. Zenith holds the game at 60 UPS by asking for less when it has to, and walking around a large save is mostly smooth now, but dense forests and long view distances still cost the graphics card a lot.
• FUE5's models follow older Factorio designs in places, and a few of their moving parts aren't back yet.
• The models will keep improving: I'm working with 3D modellers (David, who also made Zenith's logo, among them) to refine them a few at a time, worst first, and each release ships the ones finished since the last. docs/MODELLERS.md is the guide for anyone making them.
• Single-player "hybrid" mode, where the 3D client attaches to a normal Factorio window, has been played once, side by side, but not tried much yet.
• It's only been tested on Windows 11 with Factorio 2.1.23.

Known bugs are on the issue tracker.

Players: download a release, unzip it and start Zenith. Its main menu makes or loads a world and starts Factorio for you; docs/USER-GUIDE.md has the rest.

From the source: open client/project.godot in Godot 4.4+ and press F5 for the same main menu. With no Factorio at hand, run python3 tools/mock_server.py first for a fake world. docs/RUNNING.md has the details, the tests and running a server yourself.

I'm a software developer, and I like building things that push at what should be possible. The idea came from the Factorio fan remake in Unreal Engine 5 and from mods that give other games a new camera. I wanted that feel with the real Factorio underneath, so it would be the real game and not a lookalike.

I thought it would be a renderer. Instead it became most of a game client: Factorio can't draw 3D and mods can't touch its renderer, so every menu, every hotkey, every screen and every interaction had to be rebuilt from scratch. On top of that, every entity needed a 3D model.

I want to be upfront about this, because I know AI use is a sore point for a lot of people.

Most of the code and models were written by AI coding agents that I directed. The main one was Anthropic's Claude, through Claude Code. OpenAI's ChatGPT did a pass on model detail and animations, and Google's Gemini (through the Antigravity CLI) built one UI feature.

My part:

• the idea, the architecture decisions and the art direction;
• deciding what to build, in what order, and what "done" means;
• playing it on my own saves and writing up what was wrong, then checking the fixes;
• reviewing the models against Factorio's sprites.

None of it is generated blind and shipped. Every feature has to pass:

• tests of the mod against a strict fake of Factorio's API;
• a mock server and protocol validator that check every message;
• a UI test that clicks through the interface (nearly 1,000 checks);
• a checker for every model's scale, origin and triangle budget;
• a live check against a real Factorio 2.1 server (361 checks on the last full run).

All of these run on every push.

The art has one rule: it should look like Factorio, not like AI art. The models are built from code in Blender (the scripts are in tools/models/), not generated by image-to-3D, and each one is compared side by side with Factorio's own sprite. Where Wube released a real 3D model, that comes first. The FUE5 models are the work of that project's own modellers, Hurricane and Nuke, converted to Zenith's scale and kept under their licence.

Open source, one maintainer. The code is GPL-3.0 and you're welcome to fork it, but Zenith stays a personal project: I don't take pull requests or feature requests. Bug reports are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md has notes for working on a fork; you don't need Factorio for most client work, since a mock server plays a fake game.

Your own models, add-ons and mods. Today:

• Any .glb named after a prototype replaces that entity's model, from the project or from your own folder (--models=/path/to/folder, and --models-first to replace built-in ones). Models may bring their own textures.
• Add-ons: small GDScript programs in a folder of their own that add to the client without forking it, through one versioned API (the camera, keys, windows, the world read-only, events). The first is the Cinematic camera for filming (free camera, timelapses, tracking shots, paths, recording). docs/ADDONS.md is for add-on authors.
• The menu's Mods window runs other Factorio mods on the server. Their entities appear as boxes sized and coloured from the game until someone models them. Nobody has tried a big overhaul mod yet.

Next for modding: model packs for other mods, their icons, and more hooks as add-ons need them. MODDING.md covers what works today, how other mods behave, and what's planned.

Roadmap. Releases go by milestone: 0.2 stability, 0.3 performance, 0.4 UI polish, 0.5 models, 0.6 Space Age polish, 0.7 add-ons and modding, 0.8 feature complete, 0.9 final touch-ups and 1.0 the full release. docs/ROADMAP.md says what each one covers.

• docs/USER-GUIDE.md: for players: install, first game, controls, settings
• docs/RUNNING.md: setup, controls, troubleshooting
• ARCHITECTURE.md: how the pieces fit together, for anyone reading the code
• docs/PROTOCOL.md: messages between the mod and the client
• docs/ROADMAP.md: the milestones to 1.0 and how versions are numbered
• docs/PLAN.md: the approach, where each part stands, the art pipeline and risks
• docs/ASSET-INVENTORY.md: every entity's 3D model, family by family
• CONTRIBUTING.md: no pull requests; notes for working on a fork
• MODDING.md: your own models, other Factorio mods, and add-ons
• docs/ADDONS.md: writing add-ons for the client
• docs/MODELLERS.md: making 3D models for Zenith (what each model needs, belts, pipes and other pieces)

mod/factorio-3d-bridge/   Factorio mod: world streaming + a character the client controls
client/                   Godot 4 project: the 3D client
server/                   scripts to run headless Factorio with the mod and UDP enabled
tools/                    mock server (no Factorio needed), protocol checks, tests, model scripts
docs/                     guides, protocol, plan, asset inventory

The code is free software under the GNU GPL, version 3 (LICENSE); add-ons may use any licence (LICENSING.md). Version 0.1.0 was MIT and stays so. You need your own copy of Factorio: the client reads Factorio's graphics, sounds and fonts from your install at runtime, and none of Wube's assets are in this repository. Models converted from Wube's printable release keep Wube's non-commercial licence, those from FUE5 keep theirs (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), and the logo and icon are David's; see CREDITS.md.

This is an unofficial fan project. "Factorio" is a trademark of Wube Software; this project is not made, endorsed or supported by Wube.