Making a growing arrow help

Still a little new to blender, want to make a growing arrow, that goes from left to right, some up and down motion. From what I can figure, I put the arrow head and make it follow a curve path, but how do I make its back end follow, or maybe there’s even a different way than that. Thanks in advance.

I’d try use a solution involving an animation of object’s position (location) plus additional stretch-squeeze action changing the distance from arrow top to its end. For the first one (main motion) you dont need an armature - just directly animate the motion by setting appropriate obj locations @ appropriate timings. For the second action (additional) you’d need a one-bone armature linked to a vertex group (top of arrow) and moving it around :wink:

Regards,

Another way would be to make your arrow with a shaft at its final length; make sure you have enough loop cuts on the shaft so that it will bend properly. Add a shape key to the arrow mesh, then scale the shaft along the X-axis so that is very small and add another shape key. Add a curve modifier to the arrow, now if you animate between the 2 shape keys the arrow should grow along the curve.

Take a look at this blend. Might not be perfect, but it’s an idea.

Just hit Alt-A.

Attachments

curve-arrow.blend (166 KB)

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thanks guys, lil busy with work, but I will check back with your ideas!