Yes, it works on stills as you've described. But in an animation the figure needs to be in the center of the scene to orbit it with the camera, because the camera pivots around the center. When you use the trackball in Orbit Selected Mode to change the view and set a keyframe Poser doesn't record the pivot information of the selected figure, so when you play back the animation you just see a transition between two views, with the camera pivoting around the center of the scene instead of the figure.