How do you define the height of a camera for a third person view?

Here's my current code:
Code:
// camera code
		vec_set (camera.x, vector(-my.skill2, my.skill3, my.skill4));
		vec_rotate (camera.x, player.pan);
		vec_add (camera.x, player.x);
		// accelerate camera's pan and tilt angles depending on mouse_force.x and mouse_force.y in order to create a smooth camera
		camera.pan -= accelerate (camera_h_speed, trpg_camera_h * (mouse_force.x), trpg_camera_h_frict);
		camera.tilt += accelerate (camera_v_speed, trpg_camera_v * (mouse_force.y), trpg_camera_v_frict);
		my.pan = camera.pan;
		// camera code end