It seems like Blizzard has done a fair bit of work on PlayerModels in the beta. Most of the models in that list from _NPCScan don't need custom camera offsets anymore; they look fine with no change. Also, Blizzard added a couple interesting methods:
- PlayerModel:SetDisplayInfo(displayID) - (unrelated) Can show an NPC's visual without needing to have seen the mob before. The only way to get displayID is through the DBCs though.
- ...
Well I was about to log in and print them, but the beta's offline. I can't remember the method name, but there was one function that seemed like it had potential. Something like SetPortraitZoom... It took a value from (-inf, inf) where 0 showed a full body portrait, 1 showed only the head (I might have these backwards), and any value in between would smoothly shift between the two. Values above one would continue to shrink the model towards the bottom of the frame, and negative values would shrink the model towards the top. I ran a
Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube-Man zoom demo and it looks fine; It doesn't interrupt animations and doesn't seem to affect performance much. I'm looking forward to dramatic zooming portraits!
Anyway, my point was that if you do try to write a script for getting optimal camera positions, do it on the beta or PTR, since it's so different.