THINGS WE TRIED / THINGS WE LEARNED
A slightly unruly history.
3D Palace was an experiment in teaching ambitious things to people who were willing to try. I was Cris, or Ol_Blue on the old forums. It was generous, occasionally chaotic and, on the good days, a place where somebody's first rough model was the beginning of a career.
Make learning possible
I started 3D Palace when a decent manual could cost £60 and putting a video on the internet felt faintly absurd. Hosting was expensive. I spent as much time squeezing tutorials into a downloadable size as recording them. Jason Busby and 3D Buzz were an influence from across the Atlantic. The point was simple: let somebody learn enough to actually make something.
Build the whole machine
The APU set followed one complicated, Matrix-inspired asset from modelling through rigging and animation without leaning on plugins. The bonus disc wandered into a Sentinel, particles and a pilot. It was the sort of oversized teaching project 3D Palace liked best.
Reeldump and the streaming experiment
Reeldump let people watch tutorials without signing up. It worked, and running the video service cost far more than I could comfortably sustain. The old pages also had account features for upload and community use; account-free watching was the important part for a learner.
SteelPython and the eight-hour wait
SteelPython was an attempt to deliver personalised tutorial files automatically. After an order, a server encoded a buyer's details as a transparent watermark into each video and prepared the download. Clever, resource-hungry, and difficult to keep going as a small team.
Open the Workshop again
The Outer Islands is where I work today. The historic courses remain free; current teaching and mentoring focus on Unreal Engine 5. There is no need to recreate an old forum or make everybody register before they can learn. Find a useful step, try it, and tell us what you made.
Hear it from 2006
The CGCast conversation with Cris Robson ↗ catches the old Palace voice, including the jokes and some wonderfully ambitious plans. Its transcript is automatic, so names and technical terms sometimes need checking against the audio.
This is Cris's recollection, with dates and surviving pages checked where possible. It is a living history; more original material will be added as it is reviewed.