Virtual Reality Books

This book might be good for someone without health care or hospital experience, but after I looked through it and read its intended use, I realized that my 7 years of health care experience were probably much better than what the CDs could provide. I didn't even open the CDs.

this book wasn't what i expected. from the cover it looked like it was goin to be like the drawings in Eternity or Bleach or somethin but it wasn't anythin like that. the book was still a good book tho.

If the publisher had used softer paper, there would be a real use for this book

I got both books as a gift when a relative met the author and he suggested that they would make a good birthday present for me (some objective referral).

Both books are horrible, but this one is by far the worst.

I might just cut the spine and cover off this book and glue it to a different one. This way if my relative stops over she sees the title on my bookshelf and think it's not in the dumpster where it belongs.

I worked at one of the companies mentioned in the book and worked with or knew several of the characters personally. A co-worker actually turned me onto the book after she recognized my old company's name mentioned. I borrowed it and proceeded to catch up with what happened to these folks for the few years after Worldesign shut down.

While the few facts I can personally relate to are accurate, they do focus a great deal on emotion and bitterness and seem to take one person's accounts as gospel without balance from others. It does state many of the hidden trials of startups.

The writing style is weak. I found the plot disjoint and with too much coverage in some areas, and mostly too little development/depth in others. If I were to have read the book without personal knowledge of the people mentioned, I would have screamed for more character development.

I agree with the other reviewer that this is something you borrow from the library. It was a quick read.

Moody accurately captures the confusion, competition and corruption of the VRD circle -- as a VRD inventor myself I found the comments about Rutkowski as corrupt accurate -- was a bit surprised that he missed a few characters -- the MIT circle in particular. It provides an excellent lesson in Shakespearean intrigue and corporate politics.

This book is not badly written - I wouldn't say it's well written by any means but it's not bad. The thing that really galls one about the book are the characters - and unfortunately they're not fictitious. I hit rock bottom with the cast when I read about one "dreamer" who when presented with an opportunity to contribute a technological innovation to oceanographic research responded with the gushing realization that he could "make millions." Not that he might contribute something to humanity - but he might "make millions." It's a little hard to picture people primarily driven by a desire for money as "dreamers." Maybe the book should have been subtitled "The Digital Greedbags who are Hyping VR to Death."

If the point of the book is to lampoon the crass nature of the people in Seattle working on VR, it succeeds admirably. Somehow, however, I don't think that was intended to be the point. Read it only if you have a strong stomach for brainless greed, hype, and outright BS.

The book is very well structured, it teaches how to implement Maya and Virtools, taking you through the creation of a character or a tree in Maya and configuring it later in Virtools. Also explains a number of behaviors and cameras, theory and practice. Im still hoping to test a few of the examples, such as the Nighthawk section, but so far it seems fairly good.

This book is a good reference for anyone interested in creating interactive installations, typically for museums, presentations, projects, digital artwork, and even games.

If you are completely new to Virtools and you are looking for a manual, then this may not be the appropriate book. However, if your goal is to produce rich experiences with a strong cinematographic feel, it's an ideal read. Gauthier often links virtual worlds to cinema, a natural connection; if you want to push your virtual content futher, some tricks of the 7th art trade are totally appropriate.

I'd recommend this to anyone willing to push the quality of an installation, or looking forward to adding lots of depth in a virtual experience.

I am a 3D savvy person and I have been using 3D applications such as 3D Studio Max & Maya for several years but I have TROUBLE following the tutorials in this book - WHY? The reason is simple: there are errors, errors, and errors everywhere in this book. Since it's almost impossible to find a Virtools book, this would be the only choice for people who want to get a book about Virtools. However I found this book is very disappointing.

There is no logical explanation of how building blocks work (building blocks are what the pre-written scripts in Virtools are called) but merely poor direction of how to click and drag building blocks and press play. Most of the information about Virtools in this book you will be able to find in the Help menu from the software itself. There are very few (if there is any) new ideas and they are confusing and I get lost even by following the "step by step" instruction. I was doubting myself not following the tutorials correctly so I passed the book to one of my friends who is a 3D guru - and he has trouble to get things work following the tutorials in this book as well. Again: errors!!!

I'm very disappointed and frustrated.

This book contains demos solely for use with Virtools Dev 3.0. The book is specific to this software and doesn't contain much that would be of interest otherwise.

By the way, Virtools Dev used to cost $5,000. Unfortunately, they doubled the price to $10,000 this year, but from what I could find on Internet forums, there was no reason for the increase. The software wasn't vastly improved or anything.

And if you actually create a game using Virtools Dev, you have to pay them a percentage of you profit. There are other hidden charges too, such as add-ons, that you would need.

Therefore, I wasted my money on this book, but maybe this review will save yours.

It's nearly impossible to find Virtools books out there. So I was pleased to find this title. However, it has not been particularly useful.

There are plenty of demo files on the disc but very little discussion of what is going on. What I was hoping for was detail on how building blocks were selected, why they are connected the way they are, how they interact, etc. Instead the demo files are completed with little comment in the book. The instructions that are there are more of the "Drag this there. Then drag this there. Now press play." I find little insight in this method which is why I'd hoped for something more.

Many of the files on the CD are missing or not named the same as in the book. Some files that are to be downloaded from the Web were unavailable.

Also, there is quite a bit of content dedicated to creating your assets with Maya. That may be of interest to some, but I'm just in need of learning Virtools. Hence that material is of no assistance.

It is a dissapointment, but remains the only book available.

This is a useful book ONLY if you are terribly new to Second Life. I've only been in SL for 3 months and knew everything in the first half of the book. I learned a few things in the second half, but "designing" implies more than what this book offers. It sounded like a book for those who wanted to go beyond editing appearance, but it's not. It only briefly touches on more advanced concepts. If you need beginner's information, try A Beginner's Guide to Second Life or Second Life: the offical guide for a decent tour book.

Not a how-to (which the author does state), but it does have some how-to-ish sections. There are many misleading opinions, errors of fact, or editorial gaffes:

p. 10: "So using the Search feature in-world is tremendously flexible, scalable, and responsive to whatever updates or other changes might happen to SL at large."

p. 15: "512 sq/m [sic] (the smallest possible parcel)"

p. 16: "Second Life is three hundred and sixty degrees different."

Screen shots are very dark.

Some sections only make sense if you already know what's going on.

After having spent some time on Second Life (SL) I found that I needed somebody to explain to me "how" SL really works. I wasn't interested in a "how-to" guide, SL web site already covers that.
I was looking for information on what's the best way to customize my avatar, and yes I'm getting new hair and new clothes this week (thanks to this book)! I liked the suggestion of paying attention to what's written on my (and others) profile as the first place to go when meeting new people.
The most interesting information I found was around social etiquette, what it means to be "friend" with somebody and when you want to do that. Lots of details that it would have taken me way too much time to find on my own.

Overall it's an easy book to read (a couple days) and well organized. I enjoyed some of the images, I actually ended up going back to SL and looking for some of those places.

Unfortunately this book suffers the same problems as do so many Second Life "tutorials" -- it is written as a beginner's guide rather than a resource for non-newbies. Therefore it re-hashes all the basic subjects that have been dealt with in other places and offer little that is actually new.

If you are completely new to SL, you might want to buy this book. Or the Official Guide, or any of several others. But only buy one of them -- otherwise the information you're paying for is redundant.

THIS IS NOT A HOW-TO BOOK! But a how-to book was what I wanted so I was very disappointed. This book is mostly full of opinions and advice on how not to look like a n00b. The Official Guide book is much better written and explains pretty thoroughly how to use the interfaces and also addresses things like social rules and cultures. I was really annoyed by the authors silly and redundant manner of speaking.... It's just lame and very expensive. Resist the urge to buy this book.

I hate this book, it stinks. Josh White stinks

Well this one is for "artists". At least that's what the writer says. I got bored of phrases like "We artists this...", and "We artists that...". Being a computer scientist interested in computer graphics I wonder where these guys would be without computers. The book includes indeed some good tips that can be applied with any graphics package or language but the content in general is very 3DS oriented. The reference on VRML is vague and generic. If you are looking for a scientific computer graphics reference look elsewhere.If you consider yourself a "serious artist..." then this may be for you.

There is relatively little literature out there on low-polygon modeling techniques. This is the only book I know of devoted to the subject. It is clear, well-written, with good exercises. The thing is, it needs a good overhaul, as the program it deals with is 3D Studio, pre-Max. But many of the techniques are still applicable.

Haven't Had time to read it Yet. Book was new so it is in very good contition

I am a great fan of Tom Clancy. I just cannot believe he wrote this. Truly terrible. In the bin.

As a technical professional I was pleasantly surprised on how well this book is written. This book was worth buying, it's laid out well and is an easy read. The subject matter is intuitive in form and you can easily jump to the section that you are ready to start with. All of the features and views of the software are clearly explained without excessive detail. If you are an IT pro or novice Windows user, you will probably get good use from this one.

This book is only on "Team Manager", a Microsoft product which is no longer being maintained. No other information is contained in the book.

This is a deeply disappointing book, typical of a field in which approbation by academic peers seems to be much more important than delivering real help to those designing real user interfaces.

I had hoped for a book dominated by a collection of patterns describing how users interact with technology, particularly computers. Instead the first 3/8 of the book is given over to an almost blow by blow account of each contribution to the development of patterns, their application to IT and finally to HCI. There is actually one important message, that patterns can aid communication not only between IT professionals, but also between professionals and users, as a way of describing both the problem domain and the proposed solution. However, this was almost buried in a detailed discussion of pattern format, which is much less important.

I very nearly gave up reading at this point, which would have been a pity, since the central chapter of the book contains some interesting patterns, albeit of limited practical use. The "How to Play the Blues" pattern language is an entertaining demonstration of how to use patterns to describe a problem domain, while the patterns for interactive exhibits are a good set of HCI patterns, although focusing on the interaction of regular users with business computer software would be of more general practical use. I also really liked the pattern layout, relying on typography and styles rather than headings to standardise the structure, which definitely enhanced readability.

Unfortunately the book does not sustain the interest, and after a single chapter on patterns returns to a strange and lengthy self-review, to the extent of reprinting the review comments the author received on a draft version. This is ridiculous.

The book's malaise seems to be symptomatic of the whole discipline. The referenced web sites and books are not much better, with all but a few noble exceptions concentrating on academic discussions about patterns, rather than building a real pattern collection.

I am convinced that patterns can be really useful in the area of human-computer interaction and user interface design, just as they have been in many other areas of IT. I also think the arguments about style and format will be won by the author of the first good book that concentrates on building a comprehensive and readable set of useful real-world HCI patterns. This isn't it.

This book addresses a basic issue of obtaining repeatable success in user interface design with the use of interaction design patterns. I seldom come across a book that poignantly strikes a chord where I have personally witnessed so much opportunity for improvement in our field. My personal work on hundreds of user interface applications over the past decade have led me to pursue the approach of Visual Design Patterns as a means to achieve more successful and consistent user interfaces. Jan Borcher adds rigor to this approach by providing an opening round of design techniques and pattern languages for documenting and communicating Interaction Design Patterns using an XML-based notation. His pattern approach draws upon object oriented pattern work by Kent Beck whom I personally was introduced to back in the late 1980's when Kent assisted me designing large-scale applications using Smalltalk for the financial community. The author does an excellent job of explaining how patterns can be used to capture, share and structure user interface design knowledge from their projects and how to use the patterns to allow for better communication among multi-disciplinary teams. My only issue with the book is the detailed working example used to drive home the concepts. For this, Jan uses an Interactive Music Exhibit to explain the detailed implementation of his ideas. While this approach can be very effective for some designers, my fear is that a large part of the book's audience will be left scratching their heads as they try to relate the interactive music case study examples to more business oriented examples facing them in their daily life.

This is a decent book for anyone who knows very little about interdev. I liked the step-by-step tutorials, but they can get frustrating quickly. It's a good intro book, but halfway through it, you'll be looking for something better.

The Author mentions that she owns the Enterprise Edition of Interdev. This is important because she has installed ALL the options and assumes the reader has done the same. If you are not using the Enterprise edition, have your own web server running on NT, and a ton of other packages, then this book will be fairly maddening.

When I started this book it looked pretty good, but by the middle I found that it was only creating pages that would work on IE and even that was a chore. I need to design pages that fit a wide variety of browsers, and this book does not nearly fit the bill.

I agree with the other reviews. This is a hard copy of online docs and the friendship database you can get off of the microsoft site for free. Invest your money in another book if you already have experience with SQL and Interdev. I give it 3 stars because I think it would be a good book for beginners.

Perhaps it should be re-named Hands on Visual Interdev 6 and get your hands on Visual Studio 6 Enterprise Edition.

I was hoping for a book to introduce me to Visual Interdev 6, and how to connect to Access databases. I found a lot of the content was not on topic at all. How to design a web site, how to use Visual Source Safe, how to manage Corporate development teams etc. etc. This was not why I purchased the book. It would be better if the author had used that space to cover topics not even mentioned in the book at all, like searching for records in a database via a web form.

The very first database chapter presumes the user has SQL Server 6.5, and clearly states you must have this to complete the chapter. You can imagine my disapointment. I don't own SQL Server 6.5 or Visual Source Safe, I am a single designer and don't really care about team development concepts and management. What I care about is developing in Visual Interdev 6. This book was clearly the wrong choice.

I'm a VB developer and SQL DBA who needed to learn how to develop intranet/internet solutions for central administration of 130+ SQL Servers. Plus, you gotta know this web stuff. I like the concept of 'learning by doing' which is the reason I purchased this book. However, I found numerous errors that made going through this book frustrating at best. With this type of approach, you can't just write it without testing. I have learned to overlook bad grammer, but not bad code. Where do you get your editors?