The process of connecting the obstacles to form a course is essential to how parkour.design operates. All obstacles that are added to the arena are by default disconnected – they are not part of the course. There are several methods of connecting the obstacles – use them depending on your personal preferences how you design your courses.

Placing the obstacles first, then drawing the course

In this design pattern, the designer first places the obstacles on the arena and tries to arrange their positions and directions before drawing the actual course. Place the obstacles as explained in the guide Placing the obstacles, then use one of the following methods to connect them.

Connecting the obstacles using connector line

This method allows connecting obstacles quickly using the mouse and properly shaping the course later, after the obstacles are connected.

In this method, the connecting mode should be set to Connecting obstacles using lines – it can be selected with the button on the Buttons panel or toggled with an option in the Edit menu or with the default keyboard shortcut E.

To connect the obstacles, select the first obstacle, click on one of its Connectors and while keeping the left mouse button pressed, extend the connector towards the other obstacles. You will be dragging a line representing a section of the course. The curve of the line will be defined by the program and won’t be ideal, but don’t worry, it can be properly shaped afterwards.

Please watch the movie below and note the following:

• As the connector line is extended, the objects to which you can’t connect become dimmed. This will include anything that is not an obstacle.
• The obstacles to which you can connect will have green connectors. You can drag the line to the green connector and drop it there – the connection between the obstacles will be created. When a connector is red, it is not possible to connect to it (for example the obstacle is already used in that direction in that round or obstacle is unidirectional, like Finish/Start).
• When Start is attached to a section of the course, that whole section becomes the primary round. Obstacles automatically get arrows indicating their direction and numbers showing their order.
• The shape of the course is not perfect and at the end of the video there is an example of how one section of the course can be shaped.

Connecting the obstacles by drawing the course obstacle-to-obstacle

This method is similar to the previous one, but instead of extending a line, you can draw the exact shape of the course you want. In this method, the connecting mode should be set to Connecting obstacles using drawing (freehand curve) – it can be selected with the button on the Buttons panel or toggled with an option in the Edit menu or with the default keyboard shortcut E.

To connect the obstacles by drawing, select the first obstacle, click on one of its Connectors and while keeping the left mouse button pressed, draw the shape of the course towards the next obstacle. When reached a green connector of the next obstacle, release the mouse button to create the drawn section of the course.

Connecting the obstacles by drawing through the obstacles

This method is an extension of the previous method, where the course is drawn between the obstacles, but here you don’t release the left mouse button when reaching the next obstacle. Instead, you continue drawing the course through all the obstacles. As you pass through the obstacles, they are being attached to the end of the course section.

Connecting the obstacles using keyboard

In this method you connect the obstacles by pointing to them one-by-one. Select the first obstacle to be connected. Then activate the Connection mode by pressing and keeping pressed the default keyboard shortcut C. This causes the existing course to change colour. Keeping the key pressed, click on subsequent obstacles – they will get attached to the course after the first selected obstacle.

Drawing the course first, then placing the obstacles

Dropping the obstacles onto the course

First draw the course without any obstacles: place only Start and Finish on the arena and connect them using one of the methods described above.

Once Start and Finish are connected with the course, you can drag and drop the obstacles from the Object toolbox or from the arena directly onto the course. They will be attached to the path and their orientation will be properly aligned.