Bambu Studio Tutorial: The Settings That Matter

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This Bambu Studio tutorial skips the install and goes straight to the settings that change your prints. Most guides stop once the printer is paired. This one starts there, with the handful of settings Nick uses on every print and the exact moment in his videos where he shows each one.

The four videos on this page are among the most watched on the Planet 3DP channel, with over 1.4 million views between them. This page pulls them into one reference, with every menu path and value tied to the video that shows it or to Bambu Lab’s own wiki.

Menus move between versions, so each section says which version the video was made on. Jump to a topic: the six settings, supports, smooth walls, glass smooth tops, text, modifiers, large models and what’s new.

Before you touch a setting

Start with the basics Nick sets up at the top of his six settings video. They take a minute and they stop a lot of confusion later.

1. Turn on Advanced mode. It shows the full list of process settings (0:50). Nick admits it looks like a lot. You’ll end up ignoring most of it.
2. Check the printer and plate. Pick your printer in the left menu. Nick suggests staying on the textured PEI plate that ships with the printer until you have more experience (1:36).
3. Press Sync info. It pulls the nozzle and AMS details from the printer. On a stock machine the nozzle should read 0.4 mm with standard flow (2:07).
4. Use the search bar. Type part of a setting name and Bambu Studio jumps to it (5:53). This is the fastest way around a menu that moved in a new version.
5. Watch for orange. A setting you change turns orange. Click the orange icon next to it to go back to the default (8:00).

Which version each video uses

Bambu Studio tutorial: the six settings that matter most

Nick’s point in this video is simple. A new user only needs to worry about around six settings. Everything else can wait. Here they are in the order he covers them.

1. Order of walls

This is near the bottom of the Quality tab. By default the printer lays the inner walls first and the outer wall last. Switching to Outer/Inner prints the outer wall first, so nothing pushes on it while it goes down (7:29).

Nick says that gives smoother lines and cleaner curves, most of all on round or detailed parts. He makes the same case in his smoother prints video with a simple picture: draw the outline first and it’s easier to stay neat when you fill in the middle (1:55).

2. Wall loops

Wall loops are the shells that wrap around the part. More loops make a stiffer part. Nick says most prints do well with two or three. For parts that take a hit or get glued into a big build, he goes higher, up to six (8:33).

His example is a Minecraft toy for his daughter. Two walls could break on a hard floor, so he used four (10:10).

3. Sparse infill density

This is how much plastic goes inside the part. Nick’s rule of thumb: 10 to 15% for light decor, 20 to 25% when you need strength (9:55). With four walls on that toy, he dropped the infill to around 8 to 10% to keep it light. His habit over the last year has been more walls and less infill.

4. Sparse infill pattern

Nick’s two go to patterns are gyroid and triangles (10:57). Gyroid is strong in every direction. Triangles are strong and print faster. He says triangles can take a full week off a 150 part skull build.

The catch: he never uses triangles on tall parts or on a bed slinger like the A1. He guesses 3 to 5% of those prints failed when the nozzle caught the infill and knocked a support loose. On CoreXY machines like the P1S and H2S he rarely sees it. If you don’t want to think about it, use gyroid.

5. Outer wall speed

Speed is an advanced tab, but one setting is worth knowing. If you see a quality problem, lower the outer wall speed first (12:22). In his smoother prints video Nick says taking 50 to 100 off that value can make a big difference to the outer walls (2:50).

6. Supports

Supports get their own section below, because that is where most of the time and filament goes. Jump to the support settings.

Bambu Studio support settings

Nick ran the same Spartan helmet both ways (13:22). With normal supports the supports alone took over a day, 51% of the print time and 1,300 g of filament. Tree supports cut that to 13 hours, 30% of the time and under 450 g. His advice is to try both and let the numbers pick the winner. Normal supports can still be faster under a large flat overhang.

Bambu Lab’s wiki lists the types as Normal and Tree, each in auto or manual, with styles such as Grid, Snug, Tree Slim, Tree Strong, Tree Organic and Tree Hybrid. Its default threshold angle is 30 degrees.

The support settings Nick changes

When you change the interface filament, Bambu Studio offers to adjust related settings. Nick always says yes. Bambu Lab’s support page backs the pairing: PETG and PLA Basic can be used as support for each other in some cases. It also says the top Z distance should stay around 0.2 mm when the interface is the same filament as the model, and can go to 0 only with a dedicated support filament.

On a large print Nick changes a few more support settings. Those are in the large models section.

Brim ears for corners that lift

The brim ears tool sits in the toolbar. Nick sets the diameter to 15 for larger models and 8 for small and medium ones, then presses auto generate points (5:02). Bambu Lab’s wiki adds the step people miss. Brim type has to be set to Painted or the ears won’t print, and you only see them after slicing.

How to get smooth 3D prints in Bambu Studio

Smoothness comes from three places: layer height, how the walls go down and how the model handles curves. Nick’s smoother prints video takes them in that order. It was made in December 2025 on a P2S, with an A1 for comparison.

Layer height presets

The preset drop down sets the layer height for you (0:29). Smaller layers look better and print slower. The 0.12 mm High Quality preset is a quick upgrade with no other changes needed (6:58). What you can pick depends on the nozzle and the printer.

Nick’s takeaway is that the A series can go to a smaller layer height. You can see the limits under the edit button next to your printer, in the Extruder section. He says not to change them, because Bambu Lab set them (6:24).

Walls and speed

Order of walls (Outer/Inner) and a slower outer wall speed are the same two fixes from the six settings above. The extra one here is Avoid crossing walls, near the bottom of the Quality tab. In theory it keeps blobs off the outer surface. Nick doesn’t see that problem much, so his advice is to test it on and off on your printer (2:26).

Variable layer height

Printing the whole model at a tiny layer height can double or triple the print time. Variable layer height uses thin layers only on curves and fine detail, and thicker ones on flat walls (3:35). Here is how Nick uses it.

1. Select the model, then pick variable layer height in the toolbar at the top left (5:22).
2. Drag the slider toward detail for quality, or toward speed for faster prints. Nick calls the left side the brakes and the right side the gas.
3. Press Adaptive. The graph on the side shows the layer height at each point on the model.
4. Press Smooth to blend the changes. It does more on models with lots of different angles (7:27).
5. To fix one area by hand, left click or right click on the graph (8:33).

Two limits from Bambu Lab’s wiki: on a multicolor plate, the prime tower only works if every object uses the same variable layer height. It also doesn’t work with organic tree supports.

Nick has a whole video on the before and after: Variable Layer Height Comparison.

Bambu Studio text on models

Nick has several videos on text. Two good ones to start with are How To Create Perfect Text On 3D Models and The Secret To Flawless 3D Text In Bambu Studio 2.3. The settings below come from Bambu Lab’s wiki for the Text Shape tool.

1. Select the model, then click Text Shape in the toolbar. Mode and Operation only appear once a model is selected.
2. Type the text and pick a font. Size, thickness and embedded depth are all in mm.
3. Choose a Mode: Not surround for flat text, or one of the Surround options to wrap it on a curved face.
4. Choose an Operation. Part makes raised text. Cut engraves it into the model. Modifier makes flat, flush text that only changes the color where it overlaps.

To color the text, assign it a different filament or use the color painting tool.

Large models: scale, cut and print

Nick’s Triceratops skull build is a good model for this. He scaled it to just over 4 feet across the frill and printed it in 132 parts (3D Print ANY Model At ANY Size, May 2025). He cut the parts in Luban, but the scaling, printing and fixes were all done in Bambu Studio.

1. Scale it. Open the scale tool with uniform scale checked and type the size. He set the X axis to 1225 mm and Bambu Studio showed 491%. He used the same percentage on the jaw (2:00).
2. Orient the parts. With the cut parts on their own plates, he selected them all and pressed auto orient, then checked each one (7:01).
3. Set walls and infill. Six wall loops. Dropping infill from 25% to 18% took one part from about 500 g and 13 hours to 456 g and 11 hours (8:00). Toward the nose he went down to 12%.
4. Fix parts that don’t fit. Three parts came out slightly too big for the plate. He cut them with Bambu Studio’s own cut tool and glued them after printing (22:21).

Bambu Lab’s wiki covers the cut tool in detail. Select the object and press C. Planar mode makes a flat cut, Dovetail mode makes interlocking joints, and you can add Plug, Dowel or Snap connectors so the parts line up when you glue them.

The printers in these videos

Bambu Studio is free. The settings above were shown on Bambu Lab printers: a P2S and an A1 in the smoother prints video and a P1S in the ironing video. Directory pages: Bambu Lab P2S, Bambu Lab A1 and Bambu Lab P1S.