Reader reviews

Almost excellent. A second edition could easily push it to five stars.

I read this over a couple of weekends alongside a small side project, which turned out to be the ideal way to approach it. The early chapters move quickly through material I already knew, but the later sections were genuinely new to me. The chapters on graphics are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. A good addition to a technical library, as long as you know what you are buying.

Genuinely excellent — I finished it in a week and immediately started again.

I had been on the fence about this one for a while, and I should have bought it sooner. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. The balance between theory and practice is well judged; neither side dominates. One of those books that pays for itself within the first few chapters. Highly recommended.

This is the one to get if you are serious about uncanny valley.

There is a particular kind of technical book that is dense without being difficult, and this is one of them. A couple of chapters felt like they could have been merged, but that is a minor complaint. It is denser than the page count suggests, and I found myself slowing down around the middle. This is the book I wish had existed when I started working with uncanny valley.

I got a lot out of this, even if a few sections felt rushed.

There is a particular kind of technical book that is dense without being difficult, and this is one of them. The book rewards careful reading. Skimming it would be a mistake. The explanations are careful without being condescending, which is a difficult balance to strike. The writing is direct and does not waste space on filler, which I value in a technical book. A good addition to a technical library, as long as you know what you are buying.

I have read a lot of books on this subject and this is the clearest.

I bought this on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a forum thread, and I am glad I did. A couple of chapters felt like they could have been merged, but that is a minor complaint. The author avoids over-explaining, which keeps the pace up but means you need to pay attention. If you have the prerequisites, this is an easy recommendation. I will be keeping it on my desk rather than the shelf.

Recommended, with the caveat that it is not a gentle introduction.

I was looking for something that would bridge the gap between tutorials and proper reference material, and this does that well. Some of the diagrams are dense and I had to reread a few sections, though that may just be me. There is a section near the end that ties several earlier ideas together in a way I had not seen before. Good value for the price and worth the time it takes to work through properly.