Combining Edge & Vertex Bevel I'm trying to combine an edge bevel with a vertex bevel using the bevel modifier. I've watched numerous videos about hard surface modelling but all the different options are confusing me. I thought if I could tackle one problem at a time it might all start to make sense.

So, referring to the image, I'd like to apply an edge bevel (1) and a vertex bevel (2). With both bevels applied the edge bevel is being clamped (3) and I'm seeing some unwanted artifacts on the corners. If I uncheck the Clamp Overlap, I get the expected result (4) - not good !

I don't really understand what it does, but I've got the Auto Smooth turned on at it's default value of 30%. Again, I don't really understand what it does but I've tried tweaking the Harden Normals settings and that doesn't help either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and any explanation that makes this clearer for me would also be a huge help.

Many Thanks
This is because the second bevel is trying to bevel edges which shouldn't be beveled, creating too much geometry, thus creating the artifacts.

You will see that if you set the limit method in the second bevel to "Angle" and then progressively increase the angle, at some point the artifacts will disappear.
Notice how the vertices count in the lower right corner drops while you increase the angle limit. Alternatively you can set the view to wireframe (SHIFT + Z) in order to see exactly which edges are beveled.

The angle refers to the angle between the two face connected by the edge, 180° being coplanar faces, 90° being faces at a right angle and 0° being faces that intersect each other (also coplanar).

No limit Vs Angle limit = 21° :