rasc

Rasc automates the creation of interactive soundtrack websites.
The project is named after the first website created with rasc, the Ren and Stimpy classical music project.

Getting Started

These instructions detail how to prepare source files for processing into a Hugo-based static website.

Prerequisites

Install the following programs via package manager eg. chocolatey/apt-get/homebrew (Windows/Ubuntu/Mac):

git
python (version 3)
hugo
vlc

Install the Spotify Python API package:

pip install spotipy

A Spotify Developer account (and App) is required to use rasc, sign up at: https://developer.spotify.com/dashboard

Once registered, set the following environment variables from your new Spotify Application Dashboard (Spotify username can be viewed via https://www.spotify.com/account/overview/):

SPOTIPY_CLIENT_ID="1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef"
SPOTIPY_CLIENT_SECRET="1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef"
SPOTIPY_REDIRECT_URI="https://example.com/rasc/"
SPOTIPY_USERNAME="123abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv"

Installing

Clone the repository to your PC:

git clone git@github.com:naamancampbell/rasc.git

Source File - data/rasc.txt

The rasc.txt file contains the season/episode/track details to generate scene thumbnails and Spotify media for the soundtrack webpages. The file is converted into JSON format using the following syntax:

Thumbnails

Summary/title of source media (eg. DVD) used to generate scene thumbnails.

Thumbnails: <summary/title>

Example:
Thumbnails: The Ren & Stimpy Show: The First and Second Seasons - UNLEASHED (DVD)

Catalogues

List (one per line) of websites used to source soundtrack information followed by a blank line. Catalogue lines are separated into <title> | <url> entries.

Catalogues:
<title 1> | <url 1>
<title 2> | <url 2>
<blank line>

Example:
Catalogues:
Toonzone - Music of Ren and Stimpy (via archive.org) | https://web.archive.org/web/20101109014427/http://toonzone.net/wiki/index.php/Music_of_Ren_and_Stimpy

Seasons

Seasons appear before and after a blank line with the Season N format, where N is the season number.

<blank line>
<Season N>
<blank line>

Example:
Season 1

Generate JSON file - util/text_to_json.py

Run from the util directory to generate the rasc.json file from the source rasc.txt file. No arguments required.

Retrieve Spotify data - util/spotify_data.py

Run from the util directory to update the rasc.json file with artist image and track URLs from Spotify. Can be run without arguments or with --create-playlist "<Playlist Name>" to generate Spotify playlist. See Prerequisites section of README for environment variable details.

Generate thumbnails - util/vlc_thumbs.py

Using vlc, thumbnails are generated as per the rasc JSON file from the source VLC media (eg. DVD). When run from the util directory with no arguments, the vlc_thumbs.py uses the following defaults:

--rasc-json ../data/rasc.json
--vlc-path 'C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe'
--vlc-mrl dvdsimple:///e:/
--first-title 2
--thumbs-path C:\vlc_thumbs
--season 1
--episode-start 1
--episode-finish 12
--episodes-per-title 2

Further details on script arguments can be found via --help:

python vlc_thumbs.py --help

Three thumbnails per scene are generated to provide alternative images when undesired captures (blurred, mistimed, etc) are generated. The thumbnail directory needs to be manually reviewed after generating thumbnails to delete 2 out of the 3 scene thumbnails. Once the undesired thumbnails have been deleted, run the next script to rename all thumbnails.

Rename thumbnails - util/rename_thumbs.py

Run from the util directory to move the selected thumbnail files to the rasc/images No arguments required.

Customised Hugo - Newsprint Theme

Content posts

Season markdown files are required to provide metadata to Hugo layouts. Season filenames need to be created with the following format: season-<season_number>.md. Within each season markdown file, the following front-matter format is required:

---
title: "Season 1"
season_num: 1
publishdate: 2018-11-19T10:58:22.081900+10:00
releasedate: 1991-08-11T21:00:00.000000-05:00
thumbnail: "/s01e01t01.png"
draft: false
---

releasedate refers to the movie/TV show release date and is displayed under each season on the index page. The thumbnail path refers to the root of the images directory.

Season pages

Season pages are generated by the customised single.html layout located in layouts/_default. The layout iterates through the seasons JSON item in data/rasc.json to display each track, scene and composer/artist.

Index page

The index.html page, located in themes/newsprint/layouts has been simplified to suit the project layout.

Header/Footer partials

The header and footer partials, located in themes/newsprint/layouts/partials have been customised to simplify navigation links. The footer also includes attribution of source thumbnails, catalogue details, and includes links to the generated Spotify playlist.

Spotify Code for Playlist

Generating Spotify Codes is a manual process with no API access currently available. Codes can be generated using https://spotifycodes.com and the resulting JPEG/PNG can be added to the images directory.

Hugo hosting

The Ren and Stimpy Classical project is hosted by Netlify. The Netlify Large Files service is currently used to host the images directory.