[edit] also, if it's available, i'd like to manipulate the player camera as well . . . not for doing scripted cutscenes, but to manipulate the world view and cam behaviour.

for example

• when the player walks close to certain NPCs at a certain time, (like Jarl of Whiterun early in the main storyline) the player is basically grabbed by the ears and forced to look at and face him.
  
• NPCs continually face the player, especially your companion.
  
• If you get close to a dead body that was an important NPC in the past, sometimes your companion will stare at it... I've not determined if it's a longing stare or a grossed out stare but i'm not sure it matters.

Obviously some kind of look/target function, probablyu with some kind of importance weighting, but is it available in scripting?

check these:

http://www.creationkit.com/SetCameraTarget_-_Game
http://www.creationkit.com/SetLookAt_-_Actor

well THAT'S annoying . . . i've been days digging around the web, the wiki and CK for anything relevant.

Today I Learned that the creation kit wiki searches whole-word only by default, and that the info on the Help:Searching (on the wikimedia help) page is just plain wrong.

Artisanix thanks.

I usually start from this page as it has all functions gathered in one place:

http://www.creationkit.com/Category:Papyrus

then CTRL+F from there by using simple words ;]

yeah i didn't bother searching that page because i thought the site search worked "as expected"

I did however find that, contrary to the wikimedia docs, wildcards work "as expected" and search is case irrelevant. it says that boat* will find boatman but *boat will not find riverboat

that is incorrect. *target will find SetCameraTarget, which is both the letter case AND the wildcard rule, and *camera* would find it as well.

Just sayin.