Writing

As I was building OpenSpartan Workshop for Windows I needed the ability to convert a hexadecimal HTML color code to a SolidColorBrush object. Unlike with previous UI frameworks, WinUI 3 (which is what I use) doesn’t have a built-in construct for this kind of conversion. Naturally, I had to improvise.

Let’s talk a bit more about the Exchange. I’ve discussed its API implementation on my blog when it first came out in retail builds of Halo Infinite, but now that I am growing the content on the OpenSpartan website, I decided to start documenting my API explorations here. After all, it’s all at home with the rest of the Halo-related tinkering that I am doing.

This past weekend most of the Greater Seattle got to experience the thunder of US Navy Blue Angels jets buzzing the trees around the city as part of Seafair. I decided to take the time and actually venture out around the city to take some good photos this year.

So, check this little idea that I have - I want to browse the internet without all sorts of unscrupulous actors collecting every little bit of metadata on me and my family they can possibly get their hands on.

The latest dataset for Anvil is now available on GitHub.

If you haven’t yet noticed, there is a [brand-new release on GitHub of OpenSpartan Workshop 1.0.8. In terms of new features, this build is a bit light - it comes on the heels of the Operation Fleetcom, which introduced a new date format that I did not recognize for seasonal ranges, resulting in the application crashing. This has been fixed.

Way overdue, but with the release of Microsoft PowerToys 0.83.0, my very own PowerToys Awake comes in tow with a bunch of improvements that I wanted to do for a long time. This release is codenamed DAISY023, in reference to, of course, Daisy-023.

I’ve spent some time optimizing OpenSpartan Workshop (the latest release is definitely mostly a performance improvement), and so you can now enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Get a glimpse into the aggregated playlist wait times for Halo Infinite.

As part of the work on OpenSpartan Workshop I needed the capability to convert a Xbox gamertag into its immutable identifier - the Xbox user ID, also commonly known as the XUID. My plan was to add the option for someone to find all the matches where they played with a specific player.

OK, look - I am not the one to tell you that you absolutely have to track your stats for a damn video game, but I am the kind of person that finds a certain fun in that, just like I find the fun in reverse-engineering the entire Halo Infinite API. There is a certain beauty in looking at your own numbers, even if they are for some meaningless, entirely made-up progression system.

How to easily create automatic rich captions for your videos in DaVinci Resolve without having to pay for the Studio version or using third-party plugins.

A new version of OpenSpartan Workshop is released, adding support for The Exchange, ranked tier counterfactuals, comprehensive event tracking, a faster match search, and more.

I talked about Halo Infinite career ranks some time ago, but I kept needing to come back to the idea that I just wanted to have a quickly accessible list that just tells me what rank experience requirements are and how far along to Hero each rank is. No ads, no, fluff, just the table. Said table is now here.

With the launch of Halo Infinite in 2021, 343 Industries introduced the concept of battle passes in Halo. The concept itself is not new in the gaming industry per-se, but it’s new to Halo. It’s effectively a limited time opportunity for players to earn in-game rewards during what is referred to as a season (although that term becomes a bit overloaded now).