3rd person camera.

[Nosvera2]

Being new to irrlicht, I would like to know how to create a camera that can't move in the up/down directions and is fixed at a certain position above and behind an object. I plan on making an interface similar to that of Runescape: with the arrows controling the swivel of the camera around a character and the mouse being free to click on objects. Can anyone refer me to a game like this where I can look at the code? Does anyone know how to do this?

[merovingian]

I was a beginner a couple of months ago, and I can tell you this is easy. Add a regular (ie. not FPS) camera to your scene, and assign the node of your object as the parent. The following line adds a camera as a child to your object, one unit above (Y) and one unit behind (Z) the parent object, with the camera looking at the origin of the parent object.

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irr::scene::ICameraSceneNode *swivelCamera = smgr->addCameraSceneNode( objectNode, irr::core::vector3df( 0, 1, -1), objectNode->getAbsolutePosition(), 0 );

Since it is a child of your parent object, it will move when your parent object moves. You will need to keep updating the camera target as the parent object moves:

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swivelCamera->setTarget( objectNode->getAbsolutePosition() );

As you change your swivel angle, one way you can change the camera's position relative to the parent node is like this:

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irr::core::vector3df swivelCameraPosition = swivelCamera->getAbsolutePosition();
swivelCameraPosition.rotateXZBy( swivelAngleChange, objectNode->getAbsolutePosition() );
swivelCamera->setPosition( swivelCameraPosition - objectNode->getAbsolutePosition() );

These are just tiny snippets. You obviously need to play around a bit to get the exact effect you're after.