I worked out the funky colours that I was getting. AD was defaulting to the quake palette, not the colour data stored in the texture in the bsp file.

So what was happening was it was reconverting the greyscale textures back to the quake palette, quite a bit of texture detail was being lost in this process.

(now how to fix it)

in post #46 I included a zip file with the palette files in it.

1: Make a copy of AD and call it jam8dev or whatever.

2: Extract the .lmp file from the aforementioned zip to a directory called gfx, which should exist in the copy of AD you just made

3: Rename that .lmp file to palette.lmp

4: Update your Jack / TB to use this folder for testing and development of your map.

5: ???

6: Profit. 

FYI, There is no color data stored in textures in bsp file, they just refer to indexes into a palette stored elsewhere (palette.lmp as you say) 

So are even all the effects like breakable bricks turning into greyscale? 

Personally, I would leave the blood (splatters, shootable triggers) red. 

Are you in too Mugwump? It must be your first release then* 

I wasn't planning to at first because I didn't feel experienced enough. But then this jam inspired me those pretty neat ideas about Coppola's Rumble Fish and Frank Miller's Sin City, so I started upon it. I thought I could make a cool small start map in time but Shamblernaut told me he was taking care of it. If I must make an actual full-blown level with combat, I'm afraid I won't make the deadline.

I still might be able to contribute in a couple ways though, if Shamblernaut would be so kind as to answer these:
1) I haven't heard from you about the monster textures: do you think you'll have time to desaturate them or would you like me to give it a try?
2) Would it be possible to contribute my map at a later date in the form of a DLC? I suppose it would require to plan a slipgate for it in the start map, only accessible once the DLC is installed. 

1: The palette procedure described above handles the model and UI desaturation.

2: Yeah DLC is fine, I'm still working on Jam7 DLC. The view of the community is that more content is better, no matter when it's released. And I can modify the start map later too. 

regarding red blood, I need to see if I can remap the colour in progs (if I get time). 

1) OK, I'll get to it, then. And while I'm at it, I might convert the HUD as well.
2) Awesome! Thanks.

Colors: I'm not sure whether I'll use your palette for my map or not: what I have in mind is to keep the architecture pure greyless black & white and have the enemies greyscaled, but my custom Rumble Rotfish will need bright red and electric blue. I was also thinking of using a blood red skybox for an interesting contrasting effect, a bit like in Killing Joke's Almost Red cover artwork. 

Reading this thread makes me think that a "Sin City" map would be cool:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8v_WdcS3T18d29kOHp2VzZxZW8/view?usp=sharing 

Nice! You made that? 

no, my point is that you won't need to convert ui, hud or models because the palette handles that 

Can we still have a red charmap for the on-screen messages and the HUD's counters though? 

That probably requires remapping those colours to the red fullbrights that I kept in the palette. That probably needs to be done in the progs or the engine. I can look at that too, but I can't promise anything. 

It's in the engine code itself. I won't be releasing a modified engine just for a mapjam.

If you still want the coloured UI numbers, edit the lmp files and change their current palette index to 250 or 251. These are the fullbright red indexes.

The only way for me to revert blood back to red is to change the palette file again, I am somewhat loathe to do so, as this may mean that reds may creep into the textures that we've already desaturated. 

OK. I guess I won't bother with the red skybox, then. It would be weird to have a red sky but grey blood. Same with the HUD counters. So it's gonna be full-on B&W with my couple of fish as the only colors in the map.

BTW, I'm a musician and I've started working on a main theme for the jam. It's gonna be a laidback jazzy track with an electro/industrial sound. 

It should be noted that Quake is a game with a rather primitive lighting model, so colors play a fairly important role in distinguishing shapes. Not as important as with sector lighting, for example, but still. I'm a little concerned over where all this is going. 

If it turns out to be a failure then that's cool too. A journey can be just as rewarding as the destination.

It is a concern that colours will cause the mobs and geometry to disappear a bit much, but at the end of the day the designers should be able to test and get a feel for where lighting will help solve that. 

I also need some numbers so I know how many entrances to place on my start map.

If you're joining in can you pop a +1 below or something? 

On the blending of mobs and geometry: simply build your map with noticeably lighter and/or darker textures than the monsters' and be mindful of your lighting, and you should be fine. We've been watching B&W movies for more than a century and they're usually pretty readable. 

Well uhh. I get your point as a whole, but B&W movies typically support much better lighting effects. 

True, but I've seen impressive results achieved with Quake's lighting method. And you can use .lits or, for Darkplaces, RTlights. DP is particularly efficient with chiaroscuro. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwxYkKdSD855WVV5eXJReWM2MzQ/view?usp=sharing

Hopefully I will have enough time to work with lights, before deadline. 

That looks...really dark. 

Hups! I used range 0.5 that made everything way darker*