The Fabricator

How-To: Multi-Part Sets

Jobs with several parts — every side and section of a firearm, a knife set, a batch of panels — look best when one generation styles all of them. Set folders plus the Arrange board turn that into a repeatable workflow. Free accounts can build a set of up to 5 parts; Operator unlocks unlimited sets and jobs of up to 48 parts.

1. Trace every part into one folder. For each side or section, load its photo, paint or auto-mask the shape, and click Save Outline. Name the part (e.g. “G19 Slide — Left”) and file it into a Set Folder — you can create the folder right in the save dialog. Repeat until the whole job is captured. Each outline remembers its photo: open that photo later, pick the outline and choose Place on this photo to line it up again (a Line up step lets you drag, resize and turn it if the sizes differ). Save Workspace keeps the photo and its art zone together.
2. Load the folder onto one canvas. Open Armory Outlines — outlines are grouped by set. Hit SELECT ALL on your folder, then LOAD SELECTED. Up to 5 outlines fit on one canvas on a free account, 24 with Operator.
3. Arrange with gaps. The Arrange board auto-packs the pieces with spacing. Drag to reposition, resize with the slider, rotate in 90° steps. An amber ring warns that two pieces overlap — they would merge into one region, so pull them apart unless that's intentional. Click PLACE PIECES ON CANVAS to bake the layout.
4. Fire once. Choose a Style DNA or prompt and a compatible engine. Review the supported run plan and current total price shown on FIRE before starting; the charge depends on the selected workflow and may be per part. Inspect every piece in the matched result before exporting for LightBurn.
5. Iterate. the Select tool (V) makes the canvas live so you can nudge any panel in place and it re-bakes itself; REGENERATE re-fires the same canvas for a fresh take on the art.

Tip: pack pieces close but never touching — the tighter the layout, the more of the engine's resolution each part receives.

How PMAG tones work

PMAG TONES lives inside the FORGE COLOR palette (same 6 CR). It limits a fire to the tones a fiber or MOPA laser can actually make on a polymer magazine, drawn on the magazine's own colour. It runs on FORGE COLOR only: with MASTER COLOR selected, tapping PMAG TONES switches the fire to FORGE COLOR.

• A fiber or MOPA laser cannot put true colours (red, blue, yellow) on polymer. Colour by oxidation is a steel and titanium effect.
• On polymer the beam foams or bleaches the plastic, so every mark is lighter than the magazine: bleach white, light grey or tan on a fiber; bone and smoke grey as well on a MOPA, which can change pulse width and frequency.
• Pick the magazine colour (Black, FDE, OD Green, Stealth Grey or Mag Grey; swatches are approximate). It is the unmarked plastic, so it is the ground and the shadows and is never exported. The LightBurn file and layered SVG hold one layer per tone, lightest first, named like "Tone 1 - Bleach white".
• Settings depend on your laser source, lens and magazine. Open CALIBRATE, download the free grid (.lbrn2 or .svg), burn it on a scrap magazine, then pick the square that gave each tone. Your picks are saved in this browser and fill in the tone layers of your LightBurn file.

Tip: The grid values are a starting sweep, not recommended settings. If a tone never appears on your magazine, switch it off before you fire.