Apologies if this is a silly question - if I were to use a Bevel Nodes on my object (which if I understand correctly is essentially simulating bevelled geometry by informing how light interacts with the object?), once my object is finished and exported to other programs - perhaps into a game engine, would the effect still work? Obviously the node isn't creating actual bevelled geometry, so I wondered how that information is retained when the object is taken elsewhere? Again sorry if it's a silly question or confusingly written, while I'm becoming more familiar with the modelling part of 3D, I'm still not brushed up on the eventual end product and taking it elsewhere from Blender. Thanks!
It's a good question, not a silly one, and you are correct in your understanding of how light interacts.
Short answer: No!
Little longer answer:
I think, like most, there is a misunderstanding of the process of exporting a model, and where we find the answer.
Let's try and understand exporting first.
Many people when learning, think exporting a model means using one model and it's materials in different software, Blender and Unreal for example.
Exporting, simply put, is basically saving the model from Blender as a specific file type to use in Unreal.
The Blender model (.blend) still exists, a new file (.fbx for example) is created and saved for use in Unreal.
You could think of it as a duplicate model.
However to answer your question on the bevel node,
The bevel node is a Blender shader node, it and all other nodes only work in Blender.
However, to export the model to a game engine, you first need to UV unwrap and bake out texture and normal maps.
UV's and texture maps can be thought of in the same way, saving to a specific format to use in other software.
I hope this makes sense!
Thank you Adrian, that makes it clearer! I'm really looking forward to learning how to bake out textures and normal maps in the future. Cheers!