Interview with Sam Welker of Think Particle

Fuel powered by Jimmy John sandwiches and the music of 21 pilots, Sam Welker is the unique mind behind Think Particle. Think Particle is a motion graphics and visual effects blog that works with industry leading tools such as Maxon Cinema 4D, SideFX Houdini, Arnold, Black Magic, Design Fusion and Resolve, The Adobe Creative Cloud, and more. In addition to the blog Think Particle also has training, tools, and plugins for Artists.

As one of the heavyweights in the C4D community for his ability to build amazing toolsets and more, it only made sense for Britelite to interview the project busy Sam Welker…

Think Particle - Octane Studio Kit - Introduction and Product Overview from Sam Welker on Vimeo.

Tell Me About Think Particle?

It’s simply a company designed to help Artist Succeed through software, inspiration, and innovation through training and products.

Easy Riding - Motion Design Test from Sam Welker on Vimeo.

What made you start Think Particle?

It’s actually kind of a funny story - The reason why Think Particle began is because I wanted to learn and be involved in the design community. I started Think Particle when I was 17 and I’m 23 now, so it started to take off as a video blog and then I started to work on projects and started to make money and it made sense to turn it into a company. So I formed a business and made training and tools, and now it has millions of hits in views.

Anything new coming to Think Particle?

A few projects in development right now. Nothing yet to announce but thinking about: Revamping approach to training – start potentially inviting other artist to get involved – build out a new site and have Think Particle more focused on products and services and then the new site will be more focused on training.

Predictions in the industry for 2016?

I expect to see a step forward in quality, at least I hope so, I think with budgets in the past several years, quality has disappeared, and it’s more about speed for clients, and I think people have to get back to quality. Another thing you should be on the lookout for in 2016 is video is going to have a huge rise in marketing, and virtual reality is going to finally make a big boom. Things like Vjing, and the experiential industry is going to start picking up because people are becoming more comfortable with technology.

Facebook Infra Summit 2014 from Britelite Immersive on Vimeo.

Trends in motion graphics that are going to take off, is a large variety of styles are going to come this year, and one I think you’ll see a lot of is physical sciences being explored. There is new software coming out right now like Octane is just now releasing volumetric, in their software and Arnold just became available for C4D. You’ll see a lot of smoke simulations, water, sand, snow, fire, cloud, a lot of things like that, especially with the way industries are connecting new software.

Any advice for newcomers/beginners to the design industry?

First thing I would say, if you want to do it, find a reason to stick with it , and don’t give up – so set a goal and reach it, and don’t let anybody stop you and don’t let anybody change your goal. Find what inspires you about the industry and make that your priority, make that what you want to get into, work hard until you get there. Be flexible, don’t try and make it your career today, and be patient with yourself.

If we do it, you should to...

With freebies and the ability to create a variety of designs quickly and powerfully, it’s a no brainer as to why we use Think Particle Tools. For stunning simulations in rapid time we recommend The Think Particle Motion Bundle. It is designed to get you up and running as a professional motion designer. The bundle includes the TP Toolkit Pro and the Octane Studio Kit. These two products are great for eye catching motion design, fantastic rendering, and dynamic simulations.

For some context - Here at Britelite we frequently use Think Particle’s Octane Studio Kit, along with Text Edge FX as well as the Cloud Generator. Inspired by Think Particle’s Videos and tools, we think you should get into Think Particle too.

The last piece of sound advice from Sam Welker is “Animation is a fantastic industry, just work your tail off, be ambitious, and flexible.”