Skyrim Special Edition

About this mod

Book Covers Skyrim is a retexture of all the readable books, journals, and notes in Skyrim. It gives each book and journal its own unique cover and adds many additional paper styles to the notes.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Translations
  • Turkish
  • Spanish
  • Portuguese
  • Polish
  • Mandarin
  • German
  • French
  • Czech
Changelogs


OPTIONS:
- Original or Desaturated textures

COMPATIBILITY:
- Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch

LANGUAGES:
- English (default)

OPTIONAL LANGUAGE PACK
 - English
 - French
 - German - LOCALIZED GERMAN TEXTURES
 - Italian
 - Polish
 - Russian
 - Spanish

LOAD ORDER:
- Book Covers Skyrim is registered with LOOT which should sort it into the correct place in your Load Order. Place Sorting Mods above Books Covers Skyrim and Compatibility Patches below it.

INSTALLATION:
- BAIN/FOMOD: Use either Wrye Bash or NMM to install the mod.
- Manual: Unpack the download with 7ZIP and move the Book Covers Skyrim.esp, Book Covers Skyrim.bsa and Book Covers Skyrim - Textures.bsa files to your Skyrim/Data directory and activate the ESP file.

UNINSTALLATION:
- BAIN/FOMOD: Use either Wrye Bash or NMM to remove the mod.
- Manual: Remove the Book Covers Skyrim.esp, Book Covers Skyrim.bsa and Book Covers Skyrim - Textures.bsa files from your Skyrim/Data directory.




Book Covers Skyrim is a high quality retexture of all the readable books, journals, and notes in vanilla Skyrim and all three DLC. It gives each book and journal its own unique cover and adds many additional paper styles to the notes. Spell Tomes are included in the mod with optimised meshes and a replacement texture for each school. All spells of a given school share the same texture. The Treasure Maps have all been hand drawn and the rubbing of the Dragonstone is included too.

To help distinguish skill books from other books, they have had a star added to the spine of the book.




Known Issues or Incompatibilities:

Weightless Books
Weightless Overhaul (since BCS v4.2)




Bethesda Softworks for the original artwork.
Lisa Laughy for Original line art for "Children of the Sky"
Phoenix Amon (Daleth) without Book Jackets: Oblivion this mod would not exist.
Grimbot for Grimbots DLC Book Jackets for Oblivion
Metallicow for his book textures and his resources...
http://www.obsidiandawn.com
http://www.dougturner.net/blendersite
Grugnak by Peter Seckler
InsanitySorrow for Red Eagle's Bane/Fury Graphic from Unique Uniques used on the cover of "Legend of Red Eagle" with permission.
www.fuzzimo.com for the Free Stock worn book cover textures.
Best0for0Last for the Rose Quill Pen used on Feyfolken Volumes 1 to 3
Moonlight-The-Wolf for the Casanova Rose on A Gentleman's Guide to Whiterun. This was custom art created specifically for this book.
Falln-Stock for the bloody handprints on A Kiss, Sweet Mother
Spiritsighs for Photoshop Brushes
Skunky123 for permission to use his 4K Giant Skin texture on Ode to the Tundrastriders
FullmetalDevil for the Yin Yang Celtic Dragon on The Song of Hrormir
Corfus for permission to use a screenshot for the cover of The Wispmother
Dawbun for the Celtic Ravens used on the covers of Songs of the Return.
Lupas-Deva for the vector Wolf used on the cover of Thirsk, A Revised History.
Boyingopaw on Brusheezy for the Stitch Brushes used on journal covers
MonsteractiveBlog for a selection of distressed leather textures used on journal covers
Jaqx-textures for leather stock used on journal covers
GrungeTextures.com for grunge fabric and leather textures used on journal covers
inmateOfmymind for the blood brushes used on various journals including the Butcher's
Synchronetta for splatter brushes for water stains
Alharaca for leather stock
PikKatze for the fish scales texture
FantasyStock for the fabric texture on Karan's Journal
Kiso-Myruso-Stock for misc fabric textures
Myruso-Stock for misc fabric textures
MySiteMyWay.com for various fabric stock
Geverto for paper stock
annfrost-stock for paper stock
poisondropstock for paper stock
firesign24-7 for paper stock
esther-sanz for paper stock
smashmethod for paper stock
s3ptic-stock for paper stock
knald for paper stock
N-A-R-I for pencil brushes used on Treasure Maps
emptysamurai for textures used on Dark Brotherhood and Black Briar Mead notes
ofruin-stock for paper stock. WRITTEN PERMISSION OBTAINED for use outside deviantART
Faelivren for alchemy brushes used on Notes
Sirjumala for alchemy brushes used on Notes
TheLazyFox for alchemy brushes used on Notes
FromOldBooks.org for illuminated borders on Bordered Notes 01 to 13 and Mythic Dawn Museum Invitation
Designs of the Nords by KEWB1144 for Hold Banners used on the Hold Notes
paranoidstock for key brushes used on book covers
jeclxohko for Magic Symbol Resources
PriestMorokei for the House Telvanni symbol




You don't need ask me for permission to use the contents of this mod for any reason. You have it.

You can add to, subtract from, alter, enhance, embellish, patch, improve to your hearts content. This is meant to be a starting point for others to improve on, not an end all be all mod. I only request ONE thing in return...

1) You acknowledge the work I've done, and the work of those that I have credited. Rome was not built in a day and neither are mods. We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. Give credit where it is due.


BOOK COVERS SKYRIM - PHOTOSHOP SOURCE RELEASED

I have been asked to provide access to the Photoshop source files for the Book Covers Skyrim textures so that a non-English language version of the textures for the mod can be created. I wanted to make this announcement to say that I give consent for the Photoshop source files to be used to prepare either non-English language versions of the covers, alternative covers, differently desaturated covers or even covers for entirely new books providing appropriate credit is given.

If you read about the Cathedral View of modding, you will understand that at some point a modder has to let go of their mod and give permission for others to take the mod into places they cannot. With this in mind, I have uploaded the PSD files for the entire Book Covers Skyrim mod - Books, Journals and Notes. The whole lot. As an added extra I have included such fonts that were marked as Free but I would advise you to go to websites such as dafont.com and see what else they have that takes your fancy. There will be some Commercial fonts used for which you will have to find substitutes.

If you are thinking of producing non-English versions of the textures I would like to make you aware of the scale of the undertaking.

There are around 420 Books, 120 Journals and about 100 Notes. While many (about 75%) of the Books have the text as separate editable layers, the remainder do not. They will tend to be flat textures inherited from Book Jackets Oblivion and will require careful editing to make them convincing.

As well as the textures themselves, you would have to prepare new normal maps as well. The normal maps contain height and shininess information that is affected by the writing on the cover.

The Books and Journals have 1024x512 DXT1 textures for the Inventory and World views and 1024x512 DXT5 normal for the Inventory and 512x256 DTX5 normals for the World. The Notes have 1024x1024 DXT1 textures for the Inventory, 512x512 DXT1 textures for the World, 512x512 DXT5 normals for the Inventory and 256x256 DXT5 normals for the World.

Remember you will have to produce desaturated textures too. I used a -50 desaturation adjustment for the mod.