Does Blender have something akin to a “background layer”. Lightwave had a background layer…a way to see an object on a layer that was inactive while not editable?
no… it doesn’t
yo may try the outliner… set visibility, selectablity and renderability with the icons to the right of objects…
you can also set maximum renderability for each object in the objects tab (to force wireframe for examlple…)
not as elegant as a background layer like LW or a temlate or referance layer in maya, but workable…
that stuff is eminantly scriptable too shold yo find it something you do a lot…
the fnctionality may be available in a script already. in 2.49 there’s the “layer manager script”… i don’t really use that though so couldn’t say what it can and can’t do…