Supporting Edges vs Bevels vs Creasing for 3d game art and cinematics?

amankart

Hi all,

I wanted to know what use cases supporting edges, beveling and creasing would be used for 3d modeling. I'm creating a mix of game ready and cinematic models for practice.

This is my software setup.
In case software version matters. Some people have mentioned certain packages have issues exporting creased assets or baking / artificing issues:
- Maya 2026
- Most recent version of Substance Painter (Jan 2026)
- Unreal 5.4.4

From my understanding, here's how I currently see the following methods:

Supporting edges:
- good for high poly / subd / cinematic workflow to increase mesh density
- requires topology flow optimization

Bevels:
- good for adding detail that alters shape of silhouette
- good for face weighted / mid poly workflows
- good for subd modeling

Creasing:
- acts as a middle ground between the two above workflows
- good for low poly workflows?
- potential issues baking?
- potential geo artificing / shading errors?

I tend to focus more on standard beveling and support loops than mid poly or creasing. I have been paying around with the mid poly workflow but not sure how relevant creasing is in either low, mid or high poly workflows. I have seen some artists still use it but not too many.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

gnoop

I am accustomed to use custom and often parallel or perfectly radial on cylindrical forms   vertex normals and  transfer them to lods .  That way it works independent  of any topology and  through several lod levels usually .   Support lops and bevels don't survive through lods very well .   Also I often transfer /use  same UVs on hi-res meshes so baking is just worlds space to tangent space conversion instead of tedious cage tweaks .    This is considered an ancient way nowadays  although, not supported by popular tools very well.   It's beside the fact the lods are done automatically in many engines now and people stopped to care about them at all.     We haven't yet. 

Yet it's mostly an old habit  .    Painter works pretty fine  in most cases with automatic projection.   

Neox

supporting edges / quad chamfers and creases are sorta same same but different.

supporting edges give you better control over the edgequality, as in, its always going to be the same width as per your setting, while with creases the result is highly based on the surrounding geo. its just a slight mindset shift, creases are usually considered easier and can also be mixed with support geo to help control the edge quality.

i dunno why you think it is helpful for lowpoly creation (maybe for midpoly if wastage isnt an issue), to me in most cases its rather a different means to creating the highpoly to be baked down onto the low.