First, while I am still meticulously reworking imagery to ensure full IP compliance with Steam, I took the opportunity in recent months to pursue two advanced Azure certifications. I successfully completed the following: AZ-204: Developer Associate This certification covers core topics such as working with Storage Accounts, Virtual Machines, and Containers. I passed this exam with confidence. AZ-400: DevOps Engineer Expert Building on the Developer Associate, I pursued the DevOps Engineer Expert certification.

After receiving a notification from the Steam Team at the end of March regarding compliance with their Intellectual Property (IP) policies, I began working on the required documentation. To release on Steam, it’s mandatory to ensure all third-party assets are properly licensed and accounted for. To partially address this, I started recreating potentially problematic third-party assets using AI. The goal was to generate imagery that is visually similar but legally distinct, avoiding any IP infringement in the commercial release:

My trusted iMac Pro (2017) has started falling short for more demanding tasks. To keep pace with video editing, AI workloads, and virtualization, I added a modern Intel x64 workstation to my setup. The iMac still performs well for office work and regular development, especially now that the heavier apps are offloaded. This also presented an opportunity to reorganize the network infrastructure. Previously, the WiFi router also served as the DNS server, but OpenWRT was unstable.

In recent weeks, I’ve streamlined and refined the interface. First, I introduced a new .json file to handle colorization, sorting, and other properties related to the category selector. This change cleans up the interface and visually distinguishes between High-Level and Low-Level entities. Next, I implemented a subtle overlay glow effect upon hovering over different overlay categories. There should have been a video here but your browser does not seem to support it.

Over the past few weeks, I have made significant progress in preparing for the upcoming release. Steam Store Review Process First, I applied for a Steam Store Review and have since been in constant communication with Valve. I have implemented the required changes and am now awaiting the third round of feedback. Additionally, I uploaded a build for the review team in Valve’s proprietary .vdf format (Valve Data Format), which is a requirement for their deployment network.

To finish up with the Dark Mode I started implementing in January, I delved into GLSL (a C derivative) and WebGL to build proper Fragment and Vertex Shaders for application on textures. I now have inversion of dark/white colors while respecting transparency and leaving RGB values outside of gray tones untouched- just look for yourself: I also did a lot of clean-up, restructuring and polishing on CSS and interface design. Here’s an excerpt of just 2 weeks of GIT commits:

It has been a busy January, during which I accomplished a great deal on the WTF-Model. Here’s an overview of the updates: Keyboard Shortcuts I integrated keyboard shortcuts and developed a dynamic, language-adjusting and mobile-friendly mouse-over overlay that fades in/out while hovering the Menu button. Dark Mode Implementation Dark Mode was a major update, requiring extensive manual fine-tuning and coding in addition to basic CSS optimizations. If the user has App-DarkMode enabled in Windows settings, it will be automatically detected and applied as the default.

I’ve been quite busy getting everything up and running for the release of the WTF. Unfortunately, I did not manage a full release in 2024 as anticipated, but at least I was able to push the Minimal Model public end of December. The Minimal Model includes 50 Descriptions yet Zero Overlays. It’s usable - but without proper context and introduction, it may not be of much value. That’s fine for now, as I expect the WTF to have a significant impact on my life once it gains traction.

I’ve been into Azure for quite a while now as it’s my cloud provider of choice. As can be seen on the following screen, in 2024, I loved <3 spending my monies on cloud services. Initially, I did some experimenting with VMs on GCP, but this hyperscaler didn’t stick with me. Iirc, I didn’t like the interface, and, frankly, Google radiates these woke vibes for a few years now. If you’ve been around, you know what I mean.

I realized the need for a dedicated space to exchange ideas and discuss specific mappings or overlays of the WTF. Therefore, I integrated clickable URL icons for each description item, linking directly to a new forum subdomain at forum.wtf-model.com. To save setup time, I used the pre-built Bitnami Discourse image from the Azure marketplace. This allowed me to bypass a lot of manual Linux setup, and configured everything for me down to the Postgres Database that runs alongside a shared B2s instance.