Getting Started

Tools Overview

The main tools in LRA are provided in a handy toolbar at the top of the window. Here they are shown with their shortcut keys:

The tools are, in order:

• Pencil tool (Q): Draw free-hand lines.

  Click and drag the mouse to draw free-hand lines. As you draw, multiple connected straight line segments will be created.

• Line tool (W): Draw straight line segments.

  Click and where you want the line to start and drag to where you want it to end.

• Eraser tool (E): Delete existing line segments.

  Place the eraser cursor over any line segment and click to remove it. Drag the eraser cursor to remove all line segments it comes into contact with.

• Select tool (R): Select and edit/move existing line segments.

  This tool can be used in three ways.

  1. Click and drag a line segment to move it; if the segment is part of a chain of connected segments then it will be detached and moved alone.
  2. Click and drag the end points of a line segment to move that point; if the point is shared by multiple line segments then all segments will be edited at once.
  3. Click and drag in empty space to draw a selection box; all line segments in the box will be selected. Click and drag again on any of the selected segments to move them all.

• Move tool (Shift+Space) (T): Move the view-port around.

  With this tool selected click and drag anywhere to move the viewing area in order to see other parts of your track. Holding Shift+Space selects this tool temporarily; while holding down the keys, the move tool is selected and you can move around your track, when releasing the keys the previous tool is selected again.

• Play (Space) (Y): Start playing the simulation.

  Pressing Space (or clicking this play button) begins playing the simulation from the current frame. While playing, the play button becomes a pause button; pressing Space again (or clicking the pause button) pauses the simulation, staying at the current frame.

  *Note: The Y keyboard shortcut also plays the simulation but it is different to Space because it plays from the playback start point, not the current frame. See the description for Flag (below) to learn about the playback start point.

• Stop (U): Stop playing the simulation.

  Pressing the stop button or U stops the simulation and rewinds to the playback start point. See the description for Flag (below) to learn about the playback start point.

• Flag (I): Set the start-point for playback.

  This feature allows you to set a playback start point other than 00:00:00 on the simulation timeline. Clicking the flag button or pressing I at any time (during playback or while paused) sets the current frame as the playback start point. The playback start point is used when exporting video, when playing from the start (pressing Y) and when stopping playback with the stop button (or U). The playback start point is displayed with a flag icon on the time-line at the bottom of the window. Note that the simulation always starts from 00:00:00, the flag only sets the start-point for playback.

• Menu: Access the main menu.

  Click the menu button to get access to the main menu.

Other handy tools to get started with:

• Pressing the LEFT and RIGHT keys on your keyboard while playback is paused, goes back or forwards by 1 frame.
• Pressing the double-left and double-right arrow buttons on either side of the playback timeline at the bottom reduces or increases the playback speed; the current playback speed is shown in the top-right.
• Scroll up/down to zoom in and out; the zoom-level is shown at the bottom-right of the window.
• Pressing CTRL+P brings up the preferences editor.
• Press O to open/load a track and CTRL+S to save your current track.
• While using the select tool to select multiple line segments: cut, copy, and paste using CTRL+X, CTRL+C, and CTRL+V

For a complete list of keyboard shortcuts see Default Key Bindings.

Line Drawing Basics

TODO.

Song Syncing Basics

TODO.

Getting Help

TODO.

For a bigger list of learning resources, see External Resources.