I setup an orthographic view to draw my background so that it will scale to the app window, no matter what the size/resolution of the window is. Then it goes out of ortho to draw a 3d polygon. The 3d polygon is just fine, and bright and interacts with the lighting in the scene like it should. The background scales correctly, but it shows up very dark. How come?

I think you should turn off lighting before drawing you background...

Yes. Thank you.