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	9.3
	Author: Peter Plantec Excerpt: This book-and-CD package is the first of its kind and a landmark on a par with the first build-your-own-Web-site products. Readers will be among the first to create ultra-realistic, versatile V-human personalities, and will start well ahead of what is soon to be a tidal wave of worldwide interest. .: Buy at Amazon.com :.

Agents never appealed to me. They highlight so much of what is wrong with modern Artificial Intelligence. They can say the stupiest things, look fake, and generally don't convey any sort of human qualities!

Thankfully, this looks set to change in the near future, and Plantec's new book definitely puts the reader at the forefront of the changes. The first thing that hits you about this book is the humour and friendliness of the author. The book is full of funny anecdotes, personal stories, and conversation extracts from Plantec's extensive experience with "virtual humans" (V-humans). For example, he makes no excuses for the stupidity of current V-humans, and discusses how intelligence can be faked by extensive scripting. Also immediately evident is the author's diverse background as a psychologist, animator and software designer.

It is this diversity that gives the book such a innovative edge; it discusses all the key areas of V-humans that aren't immediately evident to newcomers such as you and I. For example, personality types, extensive background information, conversational idiosyncrasies, the subtleties of facial animation and much more.

In fact, a very large amount of ground is covered for a 300-page book. It starts by looking at the basics: what constitutes a V-human and a brief look at consciousness. Then it moves towards how to emulate the brain, with its emotions, personal experiences and own personality. The book even looks at topics like humour and attitude.

The final section of the book covers more advanced topics like speech recognition, home automation, biometrics, and very thought-provoking chapter on ethics and trust.

The book is augmented by a very fully-featured CD-ROM that includes examples of V-humans, as well as trial versions of 3DMeNow and Poser, two of the major software components required to build your own V-human.

The only thing that really the book really lacked was a decent look at the technology behind V-humans. Plantec admits that he isn't a software developer, but an abstract look at how natural language processing works or a formal model of emotion would have been very welcome.

Overall, though, this book is superb and should definitely become a favourite for V-human developers and animators alike. Plantec covers a very broad range of topics adeptly and with a friendly, encouraging attitude that this field is dire need of.