Question involving camera and a see-through environment

Hi everybody. So I’m currently working on a 3d game involving the character moving up a series of ramps in a tower sort of environment in order to reach the top.

I currently have the camera parented to the main character. The problem is, when the character turns, sometimes the camera will be behind a wall and the character will disappear from view. Is there any way I could somehow detect this and make the wall translucent? Or, if any of you play world of warcraft, could I somehow automatically zoom in on the character so the camera always stays inside the walls?

I suppose if I add collision detection to the camera (if possible) the latter would be possible.

Any advice?

I implemented a camera that automatically zooms in like that some time ago:
discourse.panda3d.org/viewtopic … c&start=30

Wow that’s a long read. Better get started! Thanks a bunch!