Software:
Unreal Engine 4.26
Note:
This seems like an awkward workaround..
So if I missed something here, and there’s a better method to do this,
I’ll be very grateful is you share it in the comments.
Also,
The following tip is only relevant for the CineCameraActor and won’t work with a regular CameraActor as it has a different built in offset (hopefully, I’ll have time to add this to the post later..)
Replacing the camera icon:
Its fairly simple to replace the Camera component’s mesh icon,
Just select the component and replace it’s Camera Mesh Static Mesh component with a different static mesh object:
So what’s the problem?
The problem is that the default mesh used for the camera icon doesn’t have its natural pivot at the focal point of the camera, but at its bottom somewhere,
And there is a hardcoded transform offset that compensates for that and places the icon mesh in a way that has the Icon lens roughly at the actual Camera actor pivot / focal point:
* I haven’t found any exposed transform parameter that allows moving the icon itself without moving the camera.
So in-order to replace the camera mesh with an alternative icon mesh, and have it be aligned properly to the camera’s pivot / focal point (without changing engine code and building it) the built-in offset must be negatively pre-added to the new mesh model:
In this example in Blender, a new icon is modeled facing positive Y, with pre-built offset to compensate for the hardcoded offset in UE.
The Camera actor with the alternative Icon:
Note:
In this example, I’ve replaced the camera icon with a much smaller model, intentionally, to suite a tiny scale project,
You can also scale the icon without replacing the model.
