Animations can also be created in the more traditional method of setting a timer and operating on data on every timer firing. By manipulating data in the timer callback, clients can cause any number of custom behaviors to occur, as the data changes on variables will automatically be reflected through to the user interface as would be done at any other time.

The timer callback allows non-traditional data change rates to be applied, as well as flip-book style animations where a sequence of images is pre-defined and changed on each timer iteration. This could be achieved through a series of 0 duration animations as of Storyboard 3.0.