I've gotten to the point where I can have each part of a Poser figure individually named, so that I can do the rigging process, per PhilC's excellent videos on YouTube.

I'm creating the skeleton, arranging and naming the bones appropriately.  Many of the body parts work fine.  However, I'm having trouble with the bone influence on some parts.

The legs of my creature bend in its resting state.  What's happening is that child bones are influencing parent parts.  For instance, I bend a knee and the buttock moves forward, instead of the model just bending at the knee.

Is there a way to limit the influence area of the bones?  I couldn't find anything covering this.  It's as if the makers of Poser don't have a concept of tapering bone influence.  It's pretty frustrating, coming from a Maya/zBrush world.