A passionate 3D artist with a desire to learn and grow everyday.
My name is Sam Welker. I am from Boise Idaho. I am a 3D artist with experience in the motion design industry as well as the virtual reality industry. When I am not at my desk working on creative and technical problem solving I am at home or off on an adventure with my wife and our sons.
My name is Sam Welker. I am from Boise Idaho. I am a 3D artist with experience in the motion design industry as well as the virtual reality industry. When I am not at my desk working on creative and technical problem solving I am at home or off on an adventure with my wife and our sons.
I have worked in the 3D industry since 2010. I started by creating tools and training for artists. I had the pleasure of helping companies such as Nintendo, Pepsi, and Amazon to create better work.
I have helped train artists including the marketing director of UCSB who is responsible for scientific visualizations. I have had the pleasure of working with many great companies as a freelance artist and problem solver.
I spent 3 years as the lead 3D artist and developer for Virtual Home to produce and oversee production of virtual walk through applications on the Oculus platform. We shipped several unique VR apps as a team. My responsibility was to manage the team and create these environments in a proficient manner for quick turn arounds.
Amazing Clients I've Worked With
Work Experience:
Freelance 3D Artist: 2010 - Current
As a freelance 3D artist I have had the pleasure of working with a variety of studios and companies to create great projects. I work as a 3D generalist and solve a variety of problems for my clients. I help clients to deliver great work on time without compromise. Many of my tasks fall under simulation work as an FX TD or pipeline work solving technical problems as a Pipeline TD. I often 3D model and texture assets for both real-time and rendered productions.
Lead VR Artist & Developer @ Virtual Home: 2017 - 2021
At Virtual Home I was responsible for leading a team of artists. We used tools that I developed in the Unity Game engine to produce Arch-Viz VR apps for the oculus quest and oculus go systems. These apps were enterprise apps used only by our end clients. My day to day tasks varied and included project overview and time management of our team, optimizing and maintaining our toolset, and working on the projects directly as needed.
Proficiencies & Toolkit:
I work in whatever program best suits the end goal. Here are some of the tools I use when I work.
I am very comfortable in Houdini, Cinema 4D, and recently have added Blender for some tasks to my pipeline. I have experience with Maya as well. I was trained in Maya in school. I make use of Zbrush, Substance Painter & Designer, Marvelous Designer, World Machine, Clarisse IFX, Black Magic Fusion and the Adobe suite as well.
I work in a PBR workflow using mostly Redshift and Octane render but also have experience with Arnold & Mantra. In the Virtual Reality arena I tend to choose Unity as my preferred tool but have experience in Unreal as well. I have worked with the Oculus platform primarily. I have shipped several Arch-Viz VR Apps on the Oculus quest.