Very bad weather in London today, Gales, storming rain, took ages to get home, lol.
A1) And, yup, OK, so you're talking about the
camera angles, in simple terms. If there had been a single constant angle for each/more images, then resulting "viewing those" things would have been rather strange. Therefore, the game continuously calculates the projected views of any given objects/NPCs/creatures, etc, within a simulated 3D environment through the viewpoint of the actor (when playing 1st person of course) which has some preset values as to his vision properties.
Say, a bloodsucker that you look at from a rooftop from a 70 degree angle, would not be the same "70 degree angle looking bloodsucker" when you face it on the ground; and its view, which is relevant to you, would be different again when you crouch down. This is an obvious matter, of course.
In order to change the viewing angle in this respect in the game, you can try exercising with the values presented in the
system.ltx file, starting with the variables found under
[actor_firsteye_cam] , [actor_free_cam] , [actor_look_cam] , [actor_look_cam_psp] , [mounted_weapon_cam] ....
and the rest that you know when you look at them... too long a list to write here. But
BEWARE, it's a very tricky job, so it's more than likely to create a rather interesting visual comedy.
(There are also ways to bind keys to view the game from a
3rd person view, but I guess that's not what you're after. )
A2) Artefacts config\string_table_artefacts is Russian alright, which is unrecognized by windows, hence the strange lettering.
As you play the game in English, you need to look into
config\text\string_table_enc_zone.
(the equivalent file in config\text folder is also Russian, not for you)