How to scale this object (a Tail of an Asteroid), so it is not crooked? I have a rigged animation of an Asteroid with a Tail. The Tail is a child of an Armature, and each Bone has a Track To constraint and points at an Empty. Each Empty has a Follow Path constraint. So the Tail follows the Asteroid and conforms to a curved Path. 

Now, I need a trick. I need the Tail to shorten and lengthen at certain moments. It begins short (preferably 0 length), and when it is close to the Camera, it stretches to full length (say 1) - I need to animate that. 

Now, I tried to scale the Tail object in X, but when it is very short it becomes crooked, due to the Armature rig, somehow it becomes crooked when very short. The same happens when I scale the Armature in X, it too is crooked and wonky.

Can someone have a look at my file. And see, how to do it properly in these given circumstances?



I'm attaching 2 screenshots to show what I mean by crooked.
I found something crucial, your models always have to be Applied on Scale and Rotation, specially if they are used in animation. This may be the source of your problem when you scale the geometry down, when you are modelling always remember to Apply Rotation &amp; Scale to your models, it's a good guideline to keep. (CTRL+A+Apply Rotation &amp; Scale in Object Mode)


Now, for the trick you wanted it's really a dirt trick, it's something harmful you can do, but it reproduces the effect you want, plus you can animate it. I selected your root bone of the asteroid.


And scaled it down while locking the Axis Z, (S+Shift Z)


It's a ugly solution and messing with bone's scale it's a bad way of doing things, but, it works. So for your animation, maybe you can animate the X and Y scale of your root bone.