Rigging a six-legged Blender creature: auto rigs failing and weights deform

[Avery69]

I'm working on a short animated film in Blender and I've hit a major roadblock with character rigging for my main creature, which has six legs and a flexible spine. The automatic rigging tools are failing miserably, and my manual weight painting is causing horrible deformations whenever the creature walks or turns. I've watched countless tutorials on inverse kinematics and bone constraints, but I can't seem to get the leg movement to look natural and synchronized. Has anyone successfully rigged a multi-limbed character for animation, and what was your step-by-step process? I'm considering starting the rig from scratch, but I'm worried about wasting another week.

[Larry91]

Solid plan start by outlining a layered armature for a six leg creature in Blender Build a pelvis and spine chain then six leg IK chains each with thigh shin and foot Add a back up spine control and a per limb IK control with pole vectors Test a simple tripod walk to lock timing before refining weights on the mesh If deformations appear tweak bone rolls and add joints where needed

[Elizabeth70]

Im skeptical that a single final setup will work for every scene so start with two legs and perfect that before expanding to six keep topology clean and test simple walk loops to verify movement

[Scott.G]

In a past hexapod project I built the skeleton and blocked a walk loop in stages then refined joints after a basic cycle was stable

[Layla.T]

Another approach is to isolate deformation by testing a simple mesh and focus on weight distribution first is it a weight issue or bone placement that makes it wobble

[Ava68]

Share a quick screen grab and a short video of a single step you want help with and we can spot troubleshooting ideas together