Questions on topology cleanliness and beveling during the detailing stage

Great question — what you’re noticing mainly comes from the difference between a character-modeling mindset and a real-time environment art workflow. In this course, once the blockout is approved, the refinement stage focuses on silhouette, readability, and final rendering in Unreal Engine, not animation; the assets are static, and Unreal triangulates everything on import anyway, so non-quad topology or occasional n-gons are not an issue as long as they’re on flat, well-controlled surfaces with clean UVs. Any potential risks are further minimized through a workflow built around simple UVs, tiling textures, procedural materials, and decals, which greatly reduces shading or texturing artifacts. As for bevels, finishing them with just two edge loops is usually sufficient because their main purpose is to break hard edges and catch light, with normal maps doing most of the heavy lifting; adding more supporting edges would often be unnecessary and less optimized. Your understanding is absolutely valid, but it comes from a deformation-focused context — the course gradually shows when clean topology really matters and when it can be simplified without affecting visual quality or performance.