Tips and Tricks for Project Heartbeat – How to create song charts Editor Guide (v0.17+)

An (unofficial) guide to creating charts and uploading them to the Steam Workshop with the official Project Heartbeat editor. (For Version 0.17+)

Introduction

This charting guide was heavily inspired by EIREXE’s original charting guide, but with enough changes with the new (0.17) editor in place I felt it necessary to produce my own guide.

As opposed to the author of the old guide, I’m not part of the development community and may have overlooked useful tips or keyboard shortcuts that I may have overlooked. Please let me know below if any are missing.
If you require assistance with charting details that have not been covered here, other Steam guides or Discord servers might offer useful solutions.

Prerequisites

Before you can get charts, there’s a few things you will need.

• This is the (usually) square image used to help represent the chart while selecting it. The recommended size is 512×512, but any image with a file size below 1 MB will do. The file size limit is for uploading to the workshop.
• It’s not strictly necessary, but you may want to get a background image while you’re at it. The background is the picture shown behind the menu while selecting the song, and shown during the chart when the video is off.

 

• A preview image for the chart

 

• If you don’t plan to upload your chart to the workshop, an audio file can suffice.

 

• A copy of Project Heartbeat
• Free time

 

Here is an example preview image, background image, and how they look in-game:

Creating the Song

In Project Heartbeat, charts are contained within song files. First we need to make the song.

Open the chart editor under Tools -> Song Editor.

This is the song select menu. Here you can open any existing charts or create new ones. Press the ‘New song’ button and enter your song’s title.

Now that we have a song file, we need to give the game the actual information about the song. Click the ‘Edit song data’ button to enter the metadata menu.

You will now be presented with the metadata menu, full of all sorts of settings. There are 5 tabs to sort these options out. Most are rather important, so here is a description of each.

• Set audio/video variants here.

 

• Most charts don’t need/have variants, so this will be discussed later.

 

 

• Technical Data:

 

• Contains basic information, such as the

title, artist, and chart creator.

• Also has an option for adding a

 

recommended skin.

 

• Charts:

 

• Song preview start/end

 

• Intro skip

 

 

• Toggling use of YouTube for audio

 

 

• Volume adjustment

 

 

• Separate vocal track (not able to

 

upload to workshop)

 

• Graphics:

 

• Song preview start/end
• Intro skip
• Toggling use of YouTube for audio
• Volume adjustment
• Separate vocal track (not able to

upload to workshop)

 

• Alternative Videos:

 

• Shows each difficulty and their star rating.
• You can’t edit the names of the difficulties,

but you can adjust their star rating.

 

Fill out the basic information about the song in ‘Metadata’, then head into ‘Technical Data.’

Here you can paste your URL for the YouTube video of your song. If you don’t want to upload to workshop and have an audio file, then click the ‘Select file’ below ‘Audio file.’

If you are using a YouTube video and only want audio, you can scroll down and uncheck ‘Use YouTube for video.’

Ignore the ‘Charts’ tab for now, and head into ‘Graphics.’

Use ‘select file’ to set your image(s), and then we’re done with metadata!

Editing the Chart

Our song is set up, but we need to add a chart to edit. Close the metadata menu, select your song, then press ‘Add chart.’

Here you can set the difficulty, star rating, and chart preset. You can select the difficulty name from the standard four or make a custom name. The difficulty is a general indicator of chart complexity, while star rating is a finer measure of chart intensity. You can change the star rating later. The chart preset shows the two standard charting styles: arcade and console. You have to pick one here, but you can switch or even mix them later.

Note that while star rating can be changed in the metadata menu, the difficulty name is permanent– you will have to add a new chart and copy the data there if you want to rename it.

Once the chart is made, you can open it. On your first time opening the chart, it will likely prompt you to download the audio and video for the chart, so let it do that first.

Now we’re finally in the editor!

Here’s a basic rundown of all the parts of the menu:

• Top left: Save/Load
• Top right: Play chart, settings and documentation
• Left sidebar: Arranging notes and their angles
• Right sidebar: Inspector menu, events, timing, scripts, and importing
• Center options: Grid options, video/audio toggles
• Timeline: Paste buttons, seek bar

While you may want to click all these new buttons or put notes on the timeline, there is one place you need to go first whenever you make a new chart. In fact, the editor will give you an error when you try to place a note. This chart needs a tempo map, and in order to do that, you need to look at the right sidebar and open the ‘Sync’ tab. (If you get the error message, closing the error will actually open this tab for you.)

Here you can press the first button listed, ‘Add tempo change.’ This will open a menu where you can enter the tempo, and change the time signature if you want.

Once you have a tempo, it will be on the timeline in the ‘Tempo Map’ section. Make sure it is lined up with the waveform. You may have to untoggle the ‘timeline snap’ option in the corner to do this– just make sure to turn it back on.

Now that your tempo is lined up, you can start placing notes!

To move around the timeline, you can click and/or drag on the seek bar above the timeline, press the middle mouse button and drag, or press shift and use the scroll wheel. To move the red cursor, use the left/right arrow keys or drag it with the mouse. If you want to zoom in/out, use control and +/-, or control and the scroll wheel.

To place notes, press the corresponding button on your keyboard/controller. This will place the note at the location of the red timeline cursor. You can also double-click the timeline with your mouse to place notes.

Common Tools

Playback and Settings

In the upper right corner of the editor are several useful buttons.

The first two are the test play buttons. This allows you to try out your chart in actual gameplay. The left one starts at the beginning of the chart, while the right starts at the current cursor position. You can also activate these with Z and X respectively.

Next is the chart playback function. It plays the chart automatically from the current cursor position, so you can quickly see how sections of the chart look. The keyboard shortcut for this is the spacebar. You can place notes with their respective keys during playback, so it may be useful for getting the rhythm down.

The second to last button is the ‘DOC’ button. This button provides links to useful guides or documentation. Currently it leads to two options: the official editor manual and the community charting guide. The official editor manual is currently incomplete, but may be updated in the future. The community charting guide was made for a older version of the editor, but good charting practices haven’t changed much, so give it a look.

Last but not least is the settings.

The settings menu has 3 tabs: General, Song, and Shortcuts.

The ‘General’ tab contains settings for the editor. From saving every time you use playback to the angles used on the arrange wheel, there are a lot of useful settings here. These are for the editor itself, so your settings will stay consistent over all of your charts.

The ‘Song’ tab contains settings for the song itself. Unlike the ‘General’ tab, these settings only apply to the song you are editing. Here you can change variants (if you have them for this song) or adjust the visible layers.

The ‘Shortcuts’ tab contains a long list of shortcuts, separated into categories. You can change these to suit your workflow, or just take a look at your options.

---

 

Placing Notes in a Line

By default, the editor places new notes in a row at the bottom of the screen. This can be helpful while charting, but is unlikely to be your final product.

To arrange notes in a line, first you need to select them. Click and drag on the timeline to select an area of notes, or add notes to your current selection by pressing shift and clicking. Then you can hold right click on the grid to open the arranging wheel.

The wheel arrange notes in a line away from the earliest note. (You can also arrange from the latest note by holding shift.) Move your cursor around until you are satisfied with the angle. Having your cursor on the inside of the wheel makes it snap to the indicated angles. Once you are done, release the mouse to place the notes. The angles of each individual note will be set for you based on their placements, but you can change it by left clicking and dragging on the grid. If you don’t want the angles to be changed, hold Ctrl while arranging.

You can also arrange notes in lines with the ‘Arrange in a line…’ tool, under the ‘Arrange notes’ tab on the left sidebar. Select your notes, set the angle, then arrange the notes.

If you don’t want the notes to be placed in a line on the bottom by default, you can turn off the ‘Place notes on a line’ option in settings, under the ‘General’ tab.

---

 

Circles

You can place notes in circles using the circle tool. Select your notes and open the ‘Arrange notes’ tab on the left sidebar.

The size of the circle is actually the number of 8th notes for a complete rotation. While adjusting the size or hovering the mouse over each button, you can see a preview of the arranged notes.

Mirroring and Rotation

At the bottom of the ‘Arrange notes’ tab are the ‘Flip and mirror…’ and ‘Rotate notes…’ tools. With these tools, you can flip the positions of your selected notes or rotate them about a point.

With the ‘Flip and mirror…’ tool, you can choose to flip notes about the center of the selection or mirror them across the screen. The ‘Rotate notes…’ tool rotates them by the given angle. You can choose to rotate around the center of the selection, the leftmost note, the rightmost note, or the center of the screen. While hovering over a button or changing the angle, a preview of the transformation will be shown.

---

 

Multi Notes

Multi notes are when two different notes are played at the exact same time. The ‘Placement presets’ and ‘Templates’ menus contain many options for arranging multi notes. The ‘Placement presets’ options are more dynamic, adjusting their position to match the selected notes while still staying within canonical parameters. The ‘Templates’ options are more rigid, but are solid choices for many cases.

You can also save your own templates for later use. Just select your notes, then press ‘Create custom template’ in the ‘Templates’ tab. By default you can only put your new template in ‘Official Templates’ or ‘Uncategorized,’ but if you open the file system with ‘Manage templates,’ you can create new folders to make more categories for templates. If you move any files around, you should press ‘Refresh templates’ to update them in the editor.

---

 

Special Notes

Special note types such as holds, doubles, sustains, and slide chains are created through keyboard shortcuts or the selection popup menu. First, select the notes you want to change, then right-click. A menu will pop up that shows you the options you have for modifying the selection. You can select from the given options to toggle the note type. Keyboard shortcuts for these functions are listed beside each option.

Sustains and slide chains are slightly different, as they base their length on the second note of the same type in the selection. If you only select one note, sustains will have a default length of 1 quarter note, but you cannot make a slide chain without selecting two slides going the same direction. A slide chain starting at the first note and ending at the second will be generated.

---

 

Layers

Layers are the different types of notes and events shown on the timeline. By default, you will have the 4 main notes, events, lyrics, sections, and the tempo map all visible, plus your choice of slides or hearts from the arcade/console choice. You may want to toggle the visibility of these layers, and to do that you press the eye button in the lower left corner.

It will open up the ‘Layer visibility’ part of the editor settings, where you can toggle the visibility of each layer. This includes the layers of both console and arcade notes, so if you want to switch styles or mix them up, you can show or hide them here.

---

 

Chart Offset

If you start charting and realize your notes are all out of sync, you may want to use the chart offset function. On the right sidebar, at the bottom of the ‘Sync’ tab is the ‘Offset timing points by…’ tool. Set the number of milliseconds, and all notes will be shifted by that amount. You can toggle whether or not to change the tempo map.

Inspector and Properties

The ‘Inspector’ tab on the right sidebar is one of the most important tabs. It shows the properties of the note(s) or event you have selected and allows you to edit them. Here are descriptions of all the properties that the inspector menu can view.

---

 

Notes

• Time: The time when the note should be

pressed, in milliseconds from the start.

• Position: The position of the note on the screen,

 

in pixels.

• Distance: How far the note travels from to

 

reach its final position.

• Auto Time Out: Whether the note’s flight

 

time is based on the tempo map. If unchecked,

you can access the Time Out property, which

is the note’s flight time in milliseconds.

• Oscillation Amplitude: The amplitude of the

 

sine wave the note follows as it moves. Set to

0 for a straight line.

• Oscillation Frequency: The frequency of the

 

sine wave the note follows as it moves. Set to

0 for a straight line. Negative values appear

flipped.

• Entry Angle: The direction from which the

 

note flies in, in degrees.

• Hold: Whether or not the note is a hold note.

 

 

---

 

Tempo and Speed

Tempo Change Event

• Time: The time when this tempo takes effect,

in milliseconds from the start.

• Bpm: The number of beats per minute.
• Time Signature: The number of beats per

 

measure over the type of note considered

a ‘beat.’ The default, 4/4, means you have 4

quarter notes per measure, while 6/8 means

you have 6 eighth notes per measure.

 

---

Speed Change Event

• Time: The time when this speed change takes effect, in milliseconds from the start.
• Speed calculation method: Whether the speed change is a factor of the current tempo (automatic), or set to a new tempo (fixed).
• Speed Factor (when automatic is selected): The factor to multiply the tempo by to get the new note speed, in percent.
• Bpm (when fixed is selected): The new note speed BPM.

 

---

 

Chart Sections

• Time: The start time of the section, in milliseconds from the song start.
• Name: The name of the section.
• Color: The color represents the section on the timeline.

 

---

 

Lyrics

Lyrics have 3 associated events, phrase start, phrase end, and lyric words. Start and end events only have times– no other properties.

Lyric words have 1 more property:

• Value: The text shown onscreen.

 

Alternative Videos

Some songs have multiple videos, or are popular enough to have covers. If you want to let the player see these different video and/or audio sources on your charts, you can add alternative videos to that song.

Open up your song’s metadata, and head into the ‘Alternative Videos’ tab. There you can press the ‘Add variant’ button, and enter a name for the variant and a YouTube URL for the variant. Once you click ‘OK,’ the audio files will automatically be downloaded.

Your new variant will appear in the ‘Alternative Videos’ tab. You can toggle whether you want to use the video or not. If you were to play the song at this point, the audio would very likely be out of sync with the chart. This is because the new video could start the song at a slightly or even drastically different time. Therefore, we need to use the ‘Sync variant’ button to line up the audio with our original song.

The ‘Sync variant’ menu shows you two waveforms: the original audio on the top, and your variant’s audio on the bottom. The bar on the top is used for zooming in. Zoom into the start of the song and line up the waveforms. They may not look exactly the same, but since they are the same song, the waveforms should be similar enough to line up. Once you are done, click ‘OK’ on the sync menu and the metadata menu to save the variant.

To see your alternate video in the editor, go to the editor settings and enter the ‘Song’ tab. Under ‘Media,’ there is an option for ‘Selected variant.’ It will be automatically set to ‘Default,’ but you can click on it to access your existing variants from a dropdown menu.

Lyrics

Lyrics are the subtitles you may see on charts. Of course, instrumental charts don’t need them, but for songs with lyrics, they can be good to have.

Lyrics are made up of 3 different events, all of which go on the ‘Lyrics’ layer. These are the phrase start, phrase ends, and lyric words.

Each phrase of lyrics starts with a phrase start event and ends with a phrase end event. Lyric events that are not in proper phrases will disappear upon saving and reloading, so make sure to close your phrases.

If you put multiple lyrics in the same phrase, they will display karaoke style– starting white, then filling with color when their time comes up.

Uploading to the Workshop

To upload your song to the workshop, press the ‘Upload to the workshop’ button in the song select menu.

If you haven’t included all the required information on your chart, you will be presented with an error.

Make sure your song’s metadata includes the artist, chart creator, YouTube link, and a preview image, or else this error will prevent you from uploading.

Once you have all the required information, you can access the chart upload menu. From here, you can add a description for the chart. It’s recommended to put information like the chart difficulties and their star ratings here, along with crediting the artist(s). Once you are done writing, check the box for the Steam Workshop Terms of Service, then you can finally upload your chart.

If this is your first time uploading anything to the Steam Workshop, you will have to accept their Terms of Service again in a separate menu. Once that’s done, you can access your song’s workshop page.

Here you can edit more data if you want– change the description, screenshots, and contributors, add content warnings. The workshop cover will automatically be set to the preview image, and the YouTube video for the song will be included on the workshop page.

Your song is by default set to ‘Hidden’, preventing users other than you from accessing it. Change the song’s visibility to ‘Public’ so other everyone can view it, or you can set it to ‘Friends only’ or ‘Unlisted’ if you want only your Steam friends or people with a link to your chart to have it.

Shortcuts and Tips

Action	Shortcut
Video playback	Space
Test play	Z
Test play at time	X
Increase timeline resolution	,
Decrease timeline resolution	.
Phrase start	Ctrl + J
Phrase end	Ctrl + K
Lyric word	Ctrl + L

While in the editor song selects screen, press F6 to toggle showing official and workshop charts. You can open these charts to see how they work, but can’t actually edit them.

It’s a pleasure to share Project Heartbeat – How to create song charts Editor Guide (v0.17+) with you, inspired by the exceptional work of firedragon68. If you have any recommendations for refining this content, please share them in the comments. Have a fantastic day, and be sure to bookmark us for more fresh posts and updates!