Procedural VFX Is Redefining the Industry and Gen Li’s Career Shows Why Hybrid Artists Are the Future
Visual effects are entering a new era shaped by procedural pipelines, real-time production, and emerging technologies. The artists leading this shift balance creative storytelling with technical precision, building scalable, efficient, and visually purposeful systems.
Gen Li represents this new generation of visual effects artists, working at the intersection of storytelling, procedural technology, and modern pipelines. With over a decade of experience across film, episodic streaming, mobile entertainment, and simulation-driven environments, his career reflects the industry’s growing demand for adaptable, technically fluent, and visually driven hybrid creators.
From Automation to Visual Storytelling
Gen Li’s professional journey began outside traditional entertainment.
After earning a degree in automation in China, he made a deliberate shift toward the arts by enrolling in an art school focused on visual effects and digital imagery. This transition became the foundation for combining analytical rigor with visual storytelling, allowing him to approach imagery with both engineering logic and artistic intent.
Over the next four years, Li worked as a visual effects artist on Chinese feature films and episodic television series. This early stage of his career provided hands-on experience with production pipelines, simulation work, and collaborative studio environments.
It also instilled an appreciation for the discipline required in large-scale productions and the importance of technical reliability behind visually complex effects.
As his experience grew, Li became increasingly drawn to the global visual effects industry and the creative and technical standards associated with Hollywood production.
That ambition led him to pursue advanced training in the United States, marking a pivotal turning point in his career.
Graduate Training and Procedural Foundations
Li earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), where his training shaped his creative and technical direction. The program balanced artistic exploration with production-level execution, focusing on procedural pipelines, simulation, lighting, and pipeline-aware thinking.
Through iterative critique and adherence to professional standards, such as optimization and collaboration, SCAD prepared him for production environments and ongoing adaptation to evolving tools and industry demands.
High-End Episodic Production at FuseFX
A major chapter of Gen Li’s career was at FuseFX, where he worked as an FX artist on high-end episodic and cinematic productions for major streaming platforms. He delivered complex, story-critical effects under tight schedules using advanced simulation and system-driven pipelines.
Beyond shot work, he developed procedural tools and templates that improved efficiency and consistency across shows, contributing to productions such as Griselda and The Diplomat for Netflix, as well as the Mr. & Mrs. Smith television series for Amazon Prime Video.
(Image: GRISELDA | IMDb)
(Image: THE DIPLOMAT | IMDb)
(Image: mr. & mrs. smith | IMDb)
This experience strengthened his ability to balance creative intent with technical constraints within large-scale VFX pipelines.
Expanding Formats at Crazy Maple Studio
Li’s work at Crazy Maple Studio further expanded his understanding of modern content pipelines in a fast-paced mobile entertainment environment.
Serving as a 3D artist and compositor, he worked on interactive and serialized projects requiring rapid iteration, real-time constraints, and close cross-team collaboration.
He created and optimized 3D assets, adapted cinematic techniques for performance-limited platforms, and developed compositing effects for vertical mobile formats.
By building reusable templates, establishing internal VFX guidelines, and supporting junior artists, he strengthened his ability to balance quality, efficiency, and scalability in high-volume production.
Technical Art, Simulation, and Emerging Workflows
Gen Li’s current work highlights the growing value of procedural VFX beyond traditional film and television. As a senior technical artist at TEKsystems, he focuses on FX-driven content and simulation-based asset development, creating procedural assets for testing, prototyping, and visual validation.
He also contributes production VFX domain knowledge to a large language model initiative, ensuring workflows and terminology remain production-accurate.
Working closely with cross-functional teams, he applies production-level VFX thinking to emerging tools while aligning creative intent with technical reliability.
Core Expertise and Hybrid Skill Set
Gen Li specializes in visual effects and technical art, creating clear, story-driven imagery across film, episodic, real-time, and interactive platforms. His hybrid skill set bridges artistic judgment and technical execution, combining procedural workflows, pipeline optimization, and performance-conscious design through close collaboration with cross-disciplinary teams.
His technical toolkit includes Houdini, Maya, Nuke, Unreal Engine, Omniverse, NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Substance Painter, Redshift, Solaris, VEX, HScript, and Python, supporting a strong focus on building efficient, scalable, and production-ready visual effects systems.
Growth Through Industry Change
A defining challenge in Li’s career has been adapting to rapidly evolving production environments as AI and automation reshape visual effects workflows.
With AI tools often advancing faster than established pipelines, he has focused on integrating AI-assisted processes into traditional VFX and real-time workflows without compromising creative intent. Knowing when AI can accelerate iteration, and when manual control is essential, has required careful experimentation and technical judgment.
His experience across film, mobile, and simulation environments has further strengthened his ability to translate complex ideas into efficient, narratively clear, and compelling narratives.
Artistic Perspective Beyond Production
Outside production, photography plays a key role in how Li observes and understands visual language. Drawn to landscape and monochromatic work, he prioritizes light, structure, and atmosphere over spectacle, adopting a slower, more contemplative practice that directly informs his approach to visual effects.
He has presented work in exhibitions in New York and Beijing, as well as at a side event of the UN High-Level Political Forum, reinforcing the importance of clarity, intention, and accessibility across cultural contexts. This balance of technical rigor and artistic observation defines his approach, combining the mindset of an engineer with that of an image maker guided by precision, curiosity, and restraint.
Looking Ahead
Gen Li continues to grow at the intersection of creative storytelling and evolving production technology, with a focus on integrating generative AI into traditional post-production workflows.
As he deepens his expertise in procedural effects, simulation, and compositing, he is also stepping into greater leadership and mentorship roles, reflecting an industry where innovation remains grounded in clarity, control, and craft.