A few simple questions(I hope).

I was running around in Realm Wars using the 3rd person veiw and I liked the way it felt, so I was wanting to play around with it more and try to make a very short mission as a first project. The demo game would be entirely 3rd person view. The problem is that in 3rd person view the target crosshairs either disappear or are hidden behind the character, so my first question is, How do I get the crosshairs to appear in 3rd person mode? Now, Even if I do get the crosshairs back on screen, the character's body still blocks a good part of the screen posing yet another hinderance to the aiming of a weapon...so I would like to make him somewhat tranparent so I could see through him, making it easier to aim. How could I make the player model transparent? Not 100% transparent, but just enough to see through him well.

On the matter of the dedicated 3rd person veiw... how could I take away the option of going first person?

If you don't know anything specific I would still be very pleased with a mere suggestion as to what part of the engine to read up on concerning these matters.