That's normal. The way Blender handles bones is very weird, and they need to be short to prevent the parent/child relationship lines from becoming confusing. Outside edit mode you should be seeing spheres, not those lines?

You can change the length of the bones by scaling them with Pivot Point set to "Individual Origins". Just don't move the tails or you'll mess up their rotation.

Yes, spheres when not the focus. Thanks.

I can't do much to the bones then other than know where they should be, I guess. I'm not sure how I can change the length of the bone without moving the tails though. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning. None of the bones actually follow the flow of their parent. They're more like pills pointed randomly at the root of where they should begin.

@Artfunkel: Is there possibility to change default spheres in SMD tools (in script) to something like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ixl1kxpwcjual9v/Screenshot%202014-02-24%2018.16.12.png ? I know I can do it manually for each bone, but think it will be more helpful than spheres and it would show orientation of bones.

Originally posted by #zx.pr0jk:

I'm not sure how I can change the length of the bone without moving the tails though.

Sorry, I meant don't move them in any other axis.

The position of the tail defines the bone's Y axis, so in a Z-up model they will be pointing 90 degrees away from where you might expect.

Originally posted by GoG®|Aygor ECO:

@Artfunkel: Is there possibility to change default spheres in SMD tools (in script) to something like this

It's entirely possible. The downside is that anything like that will make it very obvious that the child relationship lines are leaving the bone from the wrong position, which is confusing for new users. Plus, in general I don't think people importing existing models care which axis is which.

With that said, there's no reason not to add arrows as an importer option. It'll be in the next release.

Thanks Artfunkel! Hope that Valve will accept recommendation for you as service provider. You certainly deserve it.