Print it well
Your artwork prints face down by default, which makes the very first layer the surface everybody sees. Everything on this page is about that layer.
Print it
- Load the spools from the “Filaments to load” list into your printer or AMS. Sync them in your slicer first. That list belongs to the export settings you chose. Its numbers are the slot numbers inside the file. The 3MF opens with each slot already mapped to the real filament preset for its brand and type, not just a generic PLA. Each slot also carries the exact color swatch, so everything lines up with what is in the machine.
- Open the 3MF. The artwork arrives already painted on, the printer and print profile matched to your settings, and the build plate pre selected. Keep the slots in the numbered order shown, since slot 1 goes first and unpainted areas print in it too. A color listed as not printed at this size has no printable area in this export. Leave that spool out. Slice, and print. No tracing, no manual painting.
- Do not rename the file. The filament presets inside it are tied to its exact filename; re download rather than renaming.
Choosing which parts to print
The download panel is a set of tabs. Printer & slicer is what the file is built for, and Finish is how it prints. A Parts tab appears when your model file holds more than one separate solid piece. Nothing about the conversion changes here, so you can switch between them and download again without spending another credit.
A multi-part model starts on just the part you painted, because that is usually the one you are making. Switch to the whole model, or tick the ones you want. The part carrying your artwork always goes in, since a file without it has no artwork to print. Parts you leave out are dropped from the file entirely, and show as ghosts on the 3D preview. Click any part on that preview to add or remove it, whichever option is selected. The list follows your clicks.
Leaving parts out also moves the print. The file is centered and laid out for what it actually contains. A single part then lands in the middle of the plate, rather than where the whole assembly used to sit.
Art prints
Face down is the default, so the picture is mirrored and reads correctly when you flip the finished print off the plate. A border keeps that face down finish: it sits level with the art rather than behind it, so the print stays one tile thick. Only art whose separate pieces the border does not reach between prints face up instead.
Separate color parts
Normally the colors are painted onto the face. The print is one solid piece, and the color rides along as paint data your slicer reads. Turn this on and each color becomes its own part instead, as deep as you choose. The color is then in the shape rather than on it, and any slicer prints it in color even if it ignores paint data.
On a model it also removes the stair step a painted boundary can show, because each boundary becomes a real edge of its own part. The detail follows your nozzle and print size rather than the picture’s pixels. A finer nozzle or a bigger print gives finer edges. Anything too small for the nozzle to form is merged into the color beside it. The number of filament swaps does not change.
How deep the color runs is Color depth in Settings → Printer, 0.6 mm out of the box. You can change it for a single download on the Finish tab. That depth applies whether the box is on or off. What the box changes is how the depth is carried, as parts of their own rather than as paint your slicer carries down.
The file holds one part per color. If you move or rotate it in your slicer, select all of the parts first, so they stay aligned with each other.
On an art print the stair step is not why you would turn this on. An ordinary painted art print is already built along its own color boundaries, and its edges are real edges. What the box adds there is depth. The color goes into the tile rather than onto it, so you see it on the tile’s edge as well as its face.
- On an art print each color part is a solid piece in front of a plain backing slab. You see the color change on the tile’s edge as well as on its face. Deeper stops the slab showing through a pale color, and costs a little more filament.
- On your model nothing is added to the shape at all. Each color part only tells the slicer which filament to use where, so the model comes out exactly as you drew it. Filafy measures how much material sits behind the face you picked, and keeps the color inside it. The color can never reach a surface you did not paint. The download page shows the most this model can take, and on a thin part that is less than the depth you asked for.
Very fine lines print as one line. A stroke narrower than the thinnest line your nozzle can lay down cannot be split in two. It prints as a single line at that width. A smaller nozzle draws it finer.
If you are after full gradient photo prints using translucent layering, look at HueForge. Filafy is aimed at bold flat color artwork, which prints faster and cleaner for signs, logos and decorations.
Plate and finish
Because your artwork prints face down, the surface people see is the very first layer, laid straight onto the build plate. That makes it the highest stakes layer of the whole print. The plate gives the face its finish, and how well that first layer sticks decides whether the art comes out whole.
On a model, face down is not always possible. Face down rotates the model onto the painted face, and the rest of it may then need supports. Some models put another part on the plate first. Printing face down would then leave the artwork up in mid air on supports, so Filafy turns the option off for that file. It says why on the download page. The model then prints painted side up, and the rest of this page matters less. When the part in the way is a separate solid, leaving it out under Parts brings face down back.
The plate is the finish
Whatever texture the plate has is pressed into your artwork’s face, so pick the plate for the look you want. Filafy pre selects your chosen plate in the 3MF so the bed temperature follows it, and your slicer lists the exact plates your printer supports.
- Textured PEI: a matte, lightly stippled face. The most forgiving for adhesion and the kindest to blemishes, since it hides layer sheen and small first layer flaws. Usually needs no glue. The safest default, especially for large flat panels.
- Smooth or high temp PEI: a glossy, dead flat face. The most vivid, printed poster look, but it shows everything. Dust, a fingerprint, a gap or a slightly off first layer all end up on the finished face. Keep it spotless and dial the first layer in. Some materials, PETG especially, grip smooth PEI hard enough to chip it, and a thin swipe of glue stick works as a release agent there.
- Cool plate class: glossy plates rated for low bed temperatures. Great for PLA, but limited to the materials and temperatures they are built for; they will not take high temp filaments. Check what your slicer allows for the plate.
- Aftermarket and patterned plates (holographic, foil, carbon look): these stamp their pattern into the face for a genuinely one of a kind finish. Many are low tack. Use a glue stick for even hold, and expect some trial and error. Where they do not grip, the art can tear out mid print. Stunning when they work; textured PEI is the safe fallback if you would rather not gamble the finish.
Thin, flat panels: hold that first layer down
A wide, thin panel is the hardest thing to keep flat. If an edge lifts even slightly mid print, the layers above it print onto air. You get holes and stringy gaps right in the artwork. A few habits prevent it.
- Add a brim. A full outer brim anchors the entire edge and is the reliable choice for thin panels. Mouse ears (little corner tabs) are lighter but only hold the corners, so big flat regions between them can still peel. Peel the brim off and trim the witness line afterwards.
- Start clean and level. Degrease the plate, because a fingerprint is a release agent. A well tuned first layer height and Z offset do more for adhesion than anything else. On a low tack or aftermarket plate, add glue.
- Bigger nozzle, tougher first layer. A 0.4 mm nozzle lays a much wider first layer line than a 0.2 mm one, roughly double the bond area. It holds big flat faces far better. Drop to 0.2 mm only when you truly need the fine detail. Dry filament helps too.
Print settings that make art pop
Filafy already bakes the important structural choices into every 3MF. The rest are one time tweaks in your slicer that flatter first layer artwork.
Set automatically in your 3MF
- Arachne wall generator
- Single outer wall on the first layer, for crisper art edges
- First layer line width matched to every layer above it, so a thin color cannot vanish from the one layer you look at
- Print quality profile for your printer and nozzle
- Build plate pre selected, so bed temperatures follow it
- Prime tower sized and placed beside the model when it fits
- Printer, filament and color slots fully preset mapped
Worth setting yourself
Every value below is per nozzle, so pick your own. These are starting points, and filament and humidity move them.
| Setting | 0.2 mm | 0.4 mm | 0.6 mm | 0.8 mm | Who sets it | Why it matters for first-layer art |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | ||||||
| Wall generator | Arachne | Arachne | Arachne | Arachne | Filafy sets thisFilafy sets thisFilafy sets thisFilafy sets this | Variable width walls trace fine art features cleanly. Already in every Filafy 3MF. |
| Line width → Initial layer | 0.22 mm | 0.42 mm | 0.62 mm | 0.82 mm | Filafy sets thisFilafy sets thisFilafy sets thisFilafy sets this | Filafy sets this. Bambu draws its first layer wider than every layer above it. That quietly drops color detail that fits inside a normal line but not inside a fat first layer one. Your 3MF opens with the two set equal. The trade is a little less squish on layer one, and that is worth it on the face people see. |
| Precision → Slice gap closing radius | 0.006 mm (default 0.049) | 0.012 mm (default 0.049) | 0.018 mm | 0.024 mm | You tune thisYou tune thisYou tune thisYou tune this | Stops the slicer welding hairline gaps in the artwork shut. Scale it with the nozzle: the default is coarse enough to close real color boundaries. |
| Precision → Resolution | 0 or 0.006 mm (default 0.012) | 0.012 mm is the default, 0 for max fidelity | 0.012 mm (the default) | 0.012 mm (the default) | You tune thisDefault is rightDefault is rightDefault is right | Lower keeps more outline detail; 0 keeps every vertex, and slices slower. Past 0.4 mm the nozzle is the limit, not the vertex count. |
| Flow → Initial layer flow ratio | 1.06 (tuned; varies by filament and humidity) | 1.00 default; try 1.02 to 1.05 if you see pinholes between colors | 1.00 default | 1.00 default | You tune thisYou tune thisDefault is rightDefault is right | A touch of first layer over extrusion fills micro gaps between color islands. A fat 0.6 or 0.8 line already squashes out flat, so leave it alone unless you see gaps. |
| Strength | ||||||
| Walls → Wall loops | 4 | 2 (default), 3 for chunky tiles | 2 (default) | 2 (default) | You tune thisDefault is rightDefault is rightDefault is right | Four thin 0.2 nozzle walls are about the same 0.9 mm shell as two 0.45 mm ones. Two 0.6 or 0.8 walls are already thicker than that, so the default is more than enough. |
| Top surface pattern | Monotonic | Monotonic (default) | Monotonic (default) | Monotonic (default) | You tune thisDefault is rightDefault is rightDefault is right | One stroke direction means even sheen on the back of the print. |
| Bottom surface pattern | Monotonic Line (default Monotonic) | Monotonic Line (default Monotonic) | Monotonic Line | Monotonic Line | You tune thisYou tune thisYou tune thisYou tune this | Face down prints show the BOTTOM. Monotonic Line lays every stroke the same way across color fields, the closest thing to a printed poster finish. The one row to change at any nozzle. |
| Bottom shell layers | From Color depth | From Color depth | From Color depth | From Color depth | Filafy sets thisFilafy sets thisFilafy sets thisFilafy sets this | Filafy writes this into a painted export from your Color depth setting, so the color reaches the depth you chose. Set the depth on the Finish tab, and leave this key alone. |
| Speed | ||||||
| Initial layer speed | 20 mm/s | 20 to 30 mm/s (default 50) | 20 to 30 mm/s | 15 to 25 mm/s | You tune thisYou tune thisYou tune thisYou tune this | Slow and deliberate on the one layer everybody sees: better adhesion, cleaner color starts. A big nozzle is laying a lot of plastic per millimeter, so give it time. |
| Initial layer infill speed | 25 mm/s | 30 mm/s (default around 105) | 30 mm/s | 25 mm/s | You tune thisYou tune thisYou tune thisYou tune this | Same reason: the infill of layer one is still the visible face. |
Only if you get stringing, drop these two under Speed → Acceleration at any nozzle. Set initial layer travel to 3,000 mm/s² and initial layer to 200 mm/s². The default is around 500.
Watch the first few layers whenever you change a setting. Stay with the print until the first layer is down and you can see it going onto the plate cleanly. Most bad prints announce themselves in the first minute, and catching one there costs you a minute instead of a spool.
Detail too thin to print
Your printer draws in lines about as wide as its nozzle, and nothing narrower than one of those lines can be drawn at all. Filafy already sizes every style so its patterns, strokes and dots survive the nozzle you set. A photograph can still leave a hairline between two colors that is finer than any line your printer owns.
When that happens your slicer decides for you, quietly. It cannot form the sliver, so it gives the area to whatever it prints beside it, and nothing on screen tells you. The picture you approved and the piece on your plate stop matching.
What the toggle does
Merge details too thin to print, in Print setup under Style & convert, makes that call in Filafy instead. Every region too fine to take one line joins the color it shares the most edge with. It happens during the conversion, so the live preview, the PNG, the SVG and the 3MF all show the same picture. All four land closer to what comes off the plate.
The point is a simpler, more reliable print. Fewer sliver-thin features means fewer places for a print to go wrong. There is less stringing chasing lines that were never going to form, and fewer filament swaps spent on detail that will not appear. The result is closer to what you saw on screen.
What it costs
It removes artwork. Hairlines are absorbed into the color next to them, and hairlines are things like whiskers, eyelashes, thin lettering and the pale rim around a highlight. Leave it off to keep the artwork exactly as Filafy rendered it, which is what every project does by default.
Set your nozzle first. The nozzle is what sets the line width, so it is also what sets how much this merges. The same picture folded for a 0.8 mm nozzle loses noticeably more than the same picture folded for 0.2 mm.
The live preview will often look almost unchanged, and that is expected. At preview size a sliver thinner than one printed line is usually thinner than one preview pixel. The difference shows up in the full conversion and in the file you download, which is where it matters.
It merges whole shapes, not edges. A color region too fine to print anywhere along it is merged away. A fine TAIL on a shape that is otherwise wide enough is left alone. Trimming those would nibble the edge of every shape in the picture, rather than only the parts your printer cannot make. So this gets your file closer to the plate, and it is not a promise that the two are identical.