Some of the textures had far too much colour in them. Here is a "fixed" wad.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/108695968/kp_desaturated_fix.wad 

What's your method for desaturating textures? For what I'm currently doing I don't need greys, just pure black and white, so I click greyscale in PhotoShop then ramp up contrast to the max, but it might be useful to know how you do it, and why there's "too much color" left in them. 

I'm using a program called graphics gale, it has a nice batch tool that lets me reduce the colour depth using a palette. I'm using a custom palette that has the fullbrights still included (in case somebody wants that).

As for why there are colours still, I think that when I was desaturating the palette (I had to do it by hand) I didn't do it perfectly and some got missed (they're close enough to grey that it isn't really noticeable).

Anyway from there I export to either bitmap or tga, whatever texmex feels like accepting in that given moment.

Graphics gale has really streamlined the process for me, sure I could probably get better looking textures doing them individually, but with the app I can do them in bulk and concentrate on mapping. At the end of the day the lighting is going to make the most difference anyway (IMO). 

I suppose the palette is the one you uploaded on first page? Will you do the enemies/weapons/HUD as well? 

I'm going to package a version of AD (without the original maps) with the jam, I'm going to make a desaturated UI with it. I probably won't bother with the enemies considering there are so many of them. 

There should be a cool jazz soundtrack to complement the thing. If you think you won't have enough time, I could try to do the enemies using your palette and Graphics Gale. I doubt I'll have a playable map ready for the deadline anyway, so I'm in no rush - I may have had enough time for a start map, but you spoiled me of that :P 

As for why there are colours still, I think that when I was desaturating the palette (I had to do it by hand) I didn't do it perfectly and some got missed (they're close enough to grey that it isn't really noticeable).

Quake has a blue range that's pretty desaturated. It's not uncommon for a quantization algorithm to decide that a grey pixel in the original image is closer to one of the desaturated blues than it is to one of the greys.

Some other colors may end up being used for the same reason, but the first blue range is the worst offender. On the other hand, getting rid of it might actually reduce the quality, since the Quake palette doesn't have a lot of greys. 

Thanks Shamblernaut* I'll use those instead.

Also even though Quake's palette doesn't have a lot of greys.. it doesn't matter really. Light can be used as a focus point, almost white sky as a canvas and so on. 

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.