The original BOR is a decent start - sort of. It's universal palette technique is no longer considered relevant, but it's as basci as you're going to get without a completely blank .pak file.
Also note - if there is a "data" folder, OpenBOR overrides whatever is in the pak with that folder's contents so you don't have to pak and repack to test when you're working on stuff. Well more accurately, it loads in material from both, but if there is a conflict the data folder takes priority.
DC