Blender's Background Image vs Image Planes?

I’m just curious as to how Blender’s background image compares to Max or Maya (or other software’s) image plane?

For instance in Maya the image is actually on a plane, same in Max. I don’t recall if they’re automatic or if you have to set them up yourself though.

I guess you could just create a plane in Blender and texture it with the image, but I’m wondering about Blender’s default method.

Basically how do these methods compare?

Thanks

LC

Oops, are there no replys because it has “vs” in the title? :smiley:

Well, its not a versus thread, I’m wondering what the differences are between the two methods, not which one is better.

Or maybe no one knows what I’m talking about? :confused:

since the plane is in 3D, your view of it changes as you rotate the view perspective. It will also render, since it is “there”. With a background image, that image 1) is locked to the view; you rotate view you lose sight of the image, and 2) it doesn’t render. So for modeling, I like background image so I can quickly render. of course now you can set the plane to not render using the outliner, so it’s not that big of a difference anymore.

The nice thing about planes is that if you have a non-orthographic picture of the thing you are trying to model, you can set it to match; whereas with background images, that pic would be useless.