It really depends . A lot of people I know that started in generalist positions ended up filling niches that made them ' more ' specialist than other depts . If there is a need that is small enough to not warrant a full dept , generalists are often the putty used to fill those holes . I ' ve seen this done for crowd TD ' s , cloth TD ' s , creatureFX , tech anim Riggeranimator hybrids . In faster paces large shops TVCommercials the lighters are often the ones with the most general skillset , as they are the ones that will repairhack everything that comes in from other depts . Realistically though , I find even within ' general ' depts like FX or animation , artists will end up being ' that guy that does that one thing well '. IE Pyro , water , rigid simulations may be split up between different artists within the same shot . On animator may be good animating facial work while another is better with realist animals . TDDR Generalist ' s are rarely in a separate dept , more of a project by project gapfiller .