Sorry to go off-topic a bit...kinda relates to Capcom and textures though lol A friend of mine insisted on this about Japanese developers but... Is it true that console games from Japan, mainly Square-Enix and Capcom DON'T use normal maps? That's got to be fiction...I even looked at the assets in game and they have them…
I noticed when going through several textures including those from recent Resident Evil games (0, 4 & 5) that they tend to have a good deal of blank space at the right end of the histogram. Basically it appears they've just dropped the brightness a little to push the 'hump' to the left with the highlights tailing out…
I definitely believe there is merit in controlling the leveling of your textures. I think many other companies besides Capcom have done this in the past. In it's essence, it's a super-cheap contrast control for the art direction and style of your game. There are ways to use the levels to get maximum range, get all your…