it most certanly can.... as follows:

this is found in the shiparch.ini

camera_offset = 8, 34

Ouh, thank you, tried it and its good.

but... erh... what about all the other camera settings? like turret view (please tell me that is set by the ship size)

and, the backview? (pressing V)

Yup. Find the cockpit file for the ship you are editing ("cockpit = " in shiparch.ini), and open it up. To change the distance from the ship edit the "tether = " line, the 3 values are just an x,y,z offset from the centre of the ship.

oke, thats nice too, (I got the V thing from the "Rear View" Thread)

but, now theres a new problem.

my nomad mini fighter, when in turret view, gets, cut, the camera gets inside it.

ackward

BmB23,

The turret view camera is defined through the cockpit ini files. To fix the turret view camera, make a file inside the cockpits folder called yourshipname_cockpit.ini. This is an example of what a file looks like,

[Cockpit
mesh = cockpits\civilian\models\cv_cockpit.cmp
int_brightness = 0.500000
head_turn = 35, 15

[CockpitCamera

[TurretCamera
tether = 0.000000, 13.000000, 46
yaw_rotate_speed = 2.000000
pitch_rotate_speed = 1.500000
accel_speed = 5

The top part should remain the same, though you can sub out the mesh for any cockpit model you want. The bottom is what we are focusing on. To get the camera to zoom in or out, edit the tether values. The first number is the X plane, left to right across the ship, the second number is the Y plane, top to bottom across the ship, and the last number is the Z plane, nose to tail on the ship. With some editing of those values (X should remain the same most likely) your turret view should look normal.

After you have created the file, go into your shiparch.ini file and look for your custom ship. Look for the "cockpit =" and direct it to your file, e.g,

cockpit = cockpits\kusari\k_fighter.ini

Save the file and test it out, you will most likely need to play with the values in your cockpit file a couple of times, but you will eventually get the values right. Just takes patience.

um, Thanks but... I know that. I made a mini ship. its tenth the size of what it used to be (nomad fighter was the only that would scale properly, and i had to give it another engine too before i could see it, the original ocluded the ship, or how you spell it)

Now, i made the camera be a tenth too (apart from incockpit view)
it worked well, the ship was too fast but else ok (because of too big an engine)
only the camre intercepted the ship sometimes and most when in turret view.

To solve that... move the camera for both outwards a bit. Don't stick to a scalar reduction that's not working properly... just keep tweaking and you'll find a happy medium.

With turret cameras, I've found that I often have to offset them in the Y axis (either above or below the center) for them to work properly.

Oh yeah... and if you're messing about with cockpits... please bear in mind that the cockpit ini files are used by multiple ships... so copy/paste/rename... custom cockpit inis present zero problems.