Drinking and Driving
OBJECTIVE
As one of the leading causes of automobile accidents and deaths, the dangers involved in
DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) needs to be brought to the attention of the drivers and
the general public. The ultimate goal of this project is to bring a better understanding
about DWI to the public in an attempt to enforce safety on the roads.
OVERVIEW
? New.movie
This is the main movie. Start up the project from this movie. All other movies will be
opened up as movies in a window. Most importantly, it contains the main menu which
includes the help function (dice), navigational buttons (beeper), and the two main icons
(glass & key.) As the background music, a jazz tune by Joe Pass was borrowed. Mouse
clicks on the navigational tools will make highlights on the buttons (along with
descriptions on the LCD) and sound off a corresponding puppet sound (note that the
'chaching' or 'cough' sound plays only while the mouse is down.) Some functions such as
volume control, quit, and help are under construction.
? Dash.pict (dash)
This frame was intended to create an interactive driver's seat in which the user can
learn about the functionalities of the gauges and instruments. However, this page frame
is currently under construction. Once it is finished, the following shall be available.
? Each gauge and instrument will light up (rollover effect) and then give the name & a
brief description of the functionality (by sound.)
? Detailed information can be seen with a mouse click on the gauge which moves the frame
to the next destination.
? Driver's education tutorial (manual and/or automatic transmission.)
? Car_flash.movie (car)
This movie functions as a sub-menu page frame for the 'Driving' theme. Putting the
cursor on the topic bar will show a brief description of the contents in the scrolling
text window. A mouse click on the sub-topic bar allows the user to move on to the
detailed information on the next page.
The movie has the following sub-topics.
? DWI Statistics
? Prevention
? Cool Animations
? New_ball.movie (ball)
A simple Director animation. The ball consists of two layers of images, a red 2D spiral
image layered on top of a yellow 3D globe image.
? Crash.movie (crash)
A Director animation created strictly from the paint window option within Director. The
background music is a shrieking instrumental by Steve Vai; however, the crash sound
effect was created with a midi drum machine and mixed down with sound effects through a
8-track mixer. The text can be read by clicking on the sub-topic bars.
The movie has the following sub-topics.
? Statistics
? Laws & Regulations
? Collision.movie (X)
A quicktime movie. Appropriately enough, a tune by Jimmy Hendrix called " Cross Town
Traffic " was used. The lyrics have relevance to the traffic / driving theme.
The text portion, regarding 'Prevention,' is still under construction.
? Glass.movie (glass)
This movie also functions as a sub-menu page frame for the 'Drinking' theme. The
3-dimensional animation was created in Logomotion and was saved in a Quicktime movie
format. The new.movie calls the glass.movie, and the Quicktime movie is opened as a
movie in a window. The user has the option to play or stop the Quicktime movie while
browsing through the text. In the background, there is a rain and bell sound which sets
the grim mood ( related to the fact that alcohol is a depressant.)
The movie has the following sub-topics.
? Effects of Alcohol
? Blood Alcohol Level (BAL)
? Desert.movie (desert)
The still image was rendered in Photoshop. In order to create the heat wave effect, the
original image was distorted. Then the distorted images were arranged in a sequence
through the Director. To dramatize the dry desert sensation, an illusive tune by Pink
Floyd called "Breathe" was used. The text can be read by clicking on the sub-topic
bars.
The movie has the following sub-topics.
? What is Blood Alcohol Level
? Effects of Blood Alcohol Level
? Windshield.movie (windsh)
The still image was rendered in Photoshop. In order to create the blurry road effect,
the windshield portion of the image was distorted. Then the distorted images were
arranged in a sequence through the Director. The chosen music was by the Doors called "
Riders in the Storm." The text can be read by clicking on the sub-topic bars.
The movie has the following sub-topics.
? Short-term Effects
? Long-term Effects
? Alcohol vs. Sexuality
INTERFACE
The main interface is driven by icons and image-maps which allows the user to browse
through the pages of the movie. The content of the project is partitioned into two main
parts: text and animation.
The text portion is opened by a scrolling text window. On the initial page frames that
serve as a topic menu, rollovers have been used on the text windows. In other words, the
text window shows up when the mouse cursor is at the respective topic bar. This allows
the user to see a brief overlook of the related topic. Once the user has selected the
desired topic and clicked on the topic bar, the frame moves on to the respective page
frame. As the user traverses through the page frames, there will be more sub-topics
which will discuss the contents in greater detail. In order to see the full text, the
user must click on the sub-tonic bar and scroll up and down the text window.
Another important part of the interface is the animation. The entire project is run by
the main movie called " new.movie." From this movie, calls are made to the other movies
(which are in the same directory.) These movies are opened up as movies in a window
which has the following advantages. First, it has duality in a sense that the movie in a
window can be processing one thing, and the remaining stage can be doing a completely
different thing. In this case, the movie in a window is playing an animation on the side
while the user can manipulate or interact with the menu interface. Secondly, the main
movie, "new.movie," stays organized as it is kept small and calls other movies into
itself only when they are needed. This is analogous to the structured programming
strategy: the main code is brief and makes many procedure calls.
The only disadvantage of movies in a window is that it sometimes causes minor annoyances
or glitches. For example, if the called movie has transitions in between frames, it will
slow down the computer and make short pauses in cursor movements. Another possible error
exists in the sound sprites. Let's suppose that there is a sound track playing in the
called movie. When the movie is closed by the "forget movie" command, it is supposed to
close down the whole movie. However, what happens is that the sequence does move on to
the next frame, yet the sound is still playing in the background. The results can be
devastating as the movie has the current sound and the previous sound from another movie
playing simultaneously. In this situation, one way to eliminate the problem is to always
have a sound file in the same rows of the sound sprites.
CONCLUSION & EVALUATION
At first, I was actually working on another project of the same theme. During the
course of the semester, however, I came to realize that this project was lacking in many
ways. I remember seeing a project done by an ITP student which gave me the inspiration
to pursue this project to a greater extent. That's when I had this burning desire to
boldly start over from scratch.
From that moment on it was back to the drawing board. This project has an immense
amount of time invested into the interface concept, and animation. I believe that I've
spent as much time just thinking about the interface layout as actually working on the
project itself. I was hoping to make a complete guide to 'Driving.' But it wasn't long
before I realized that this was too grand of a scheme for a semester's work load.
" Drinking and Driving " is only a part of my large prospective project. I regret that
the semester has only so much time available. As the project stands now, many
functionalities and navigation are either not yet implemented or somewhat unstable. In
given time though, I am planning on continuing this project in the semesters to come.
It may take more time to learn new tools and methods, but I'm also hoping to include more
digital video and 3-Dimensional materials.
Someday this project will be a highly interactive, informative, virtual reality
environment for all types of drivers and pedestrians.
|