Eli Enigenburg is a freelance animator working in Carlsbad, California. He spends most of his time studying both the craft of character animation and the art form itself. Animation has always interested him but since Luxo Jr., Eli has been fascinated with CG animation particularly.

In the beginning, sometime around late 1992, there were a handful of college kids holed up in an apartment making a PC shareware game. Megapede!, as it was dubbed, turned out to be one of the most enjoyable projects ever. Eli took care of all the artwork, making a bunch of tiny, 256-color sprites, and with the help of 3D Studio R3, a few CG loading and intro screens. After college and a few years of long day jobs and short evenings practicing and learning more about art and CG, Eli saw opportunity as the design industry exploded with the advent of the WWW. In 1995, he left his day job building and repairing laser equipment to become a freelance graphic artist specializing in web design.

It took a few months, but things finally stabilized and for a couple of years the WWW was paying for Eli’s R&D time as he worked from his home office in downtown San Diego. One of his main contracts even included a clause that paid for the expensive classes he was taking at Silicon Studios Los Angeles in Santa Monica, as long as the web pages were rolling in as well. This proved to be invaluable, and after several classes and labs in CG modeling, lighting, and animation using PowerAnimator, Eli hung up the web hat and landed a job as an artist at Greystone Technology.

Greystone was making XS-G, an arcade game that needed courses, spacecraft, and props designed, modeled, and textured. The small art staff was assigned chunks of the game to be done individually rather than as an assembly line. This was a great opportunity to learn about several aspects of 3D graphics and was an integral part of why Eli is a generalist with a specific focus, rather than a specialist that can only do one job. The high-end Silicon Graphics equipment was familiar from his recent schooling and he met the challenges of low-polygon modeling and texturing in the new industry that had evolved from his earlier days in 2D games.

After the production of XS-G, Eli moved on to Presto Studios, looking for something new and exciting. He found it and a whole lot more in Star Trek: Hidden Evil, Activision’s first Star Trek adventure game. Eli headed up the 3D-character side of things, while some of the talented artists at Presto created the 3D backgrounds for this real-time/pre-rendered hybrid game. Early on, Eli got to model, texture, rig, and animate the characters that would soon become his passion and focus in CG. The mix of interactive and numerous cinematic animations provided diversity and exercises in both animation mechanics and acting. The caliber of the artists working on Hidden Evil was second to none, and working with such talented people left Eli driven to achieve more than ever.

After a couple of years at Presto Studios, who subsequently went on to create Myst III: Exile, Eli and his fire for animation went up the road to Angel Studios. There he was able to be involved in every aspect of character creation in the pre-production of an up-and-coming console game. He also seized the opportunity to learn Maya, taking him back to his roots in PowerAnimator. Since then, Eli has been taking it easy, learning more about animation & art, and looking forward to the next project.

Eli's thoughts on Production:
There is a direct relationship between the overall effectiveness of a production team and the interest level of the team members, both individually and as a group. I think it is arguably the most important ingredient in a successful production due to one simple fact: Artists push each other - if they’re interested. Artists that are light on talent but interested in producing quality work will seek critique and advice from more talented artists. Even the most gifted artists stumble through the often-grueling technicalities of production from time to time, but if they are fired up about the project, they will learn what they must to achieve the results that they want. Conversely, I find that artists presented with a problem they find uninteresting become ineffective and cumbersome. Artists that lack both talent and enthusiasm just don’t seem to get any better with practice. So, be excited about what you are creating, even if nobody else seems to be. Enthusiasm can be highly contagious. And, who knows? You just might learn something.