Having really enjoyed my first steps into Enderal, I am happy to announce that I have been inspired to start work on a Book Covers mod for Enderal. It will be very similar in structure and appearance to Book Covers Skyrim and will inherit a lot of the textures from that mod but will still have to obey the same constraints that were only relieved when Skyrim Special Edition came out such as true double-sided notes and better support of Texture Sets.
The Enderal Bugs team have already been given some initial bug reports to do with Books but these were only intended to set the groundwork for this mod and to ensure that Book Covers Enderal made minimal edits to the existing content. As I discover spelling, formatting and grammar corrections I will submit those separately.
IN SCOPE
It is my intention to provide replacement covers for every regular book that can be put in the inventory, every journal and almost all of the notes. I also intend to try to provide "Book Covers" style images for any maps or pictures in books depending on how intricate they are.
I will be making textures for the mod in English and German providing I can get the necessary help with translation issues for the words on the covers.
Book and Journal textures and their normal maps will be in 1024x512px resolution. Notes and their normal maps will be in 2048x1024 (double sided).
OUT OF SCOPE
There will be only one "saturation" version of the mod. Enderal is a more colourful place than Skyrim and includes its own ENB so I will not be releasing a "desaturated" version of the mod.
I will not release a Weightless Cheat version, a Sorting Mod version or any compatibility patches for existing book mods.
Players in languages other than German or English will have to ask their own Localization teams to translate the textures on the covers. I will be happy to offer advice on how to go about this and how to create the Normal Maps.
TIME SCALE
Even though Enderal has a much smaller set of books than Skyrim, this is still a large project and I do have other personal commitments. I would estimate that there are (at least) several months of work in this mod and I do not intend to give detailed progress reports. As the old saying goes... "When'em's black, em's done!" If I ever get into problems and struggle to complete the mod, I will release it and all its source files on the Nexus for public completion.
I will not be making frequent updates to the mod once complete as I am on a very restricted rural broadband connection.
PERMISSIONS
I am happy for anyone to do anything with the mod (including bundling it with others into a Compilation) providing it is always FREE. There are stocks used in the mod that have "Non-Commercial" as strict usage rules. I am happy for the Enderal team to eventually merge the mod into the main game if they wish to do so.
I will make the Photoshop PSD Source Files freely available for this purpose.
I may occasionally post design queries in this thread if I am wondering if a particular group or individual would have a custom Note or Journal design. I will also need help with translation decisions when I am changing the English words on the covers to German so will look forward to poking you all at the appropriate time.
EDIT : I am investigating the "open book" models as they are often able to be picked up and therefore may need covers.