Animation Steps: Single, Random, and Timeless

Updated 2 weeks ago · 5 min readBeginner

Animation steps are how your workflow talks to the guest. They play an image, video, or slideshow on the booth screen and hold the flow there until a trigger fires. Almost every screen a guest sees that is not a camera feed, a menu, or a result is an animation step: the touch-to-start screen, the countdown, the "one moment please" screen while AI runs, and the thank-you screen at the end.

The Workflow Builder has three animation step types, and choosing the right one is mostly a question of how many clips you have and whether the animation should block the flow.

The Three Animation Steps

Single plays one animation with one trigger. This is the workhorse and the one you will use most.

Random plays one animation picked at random from a folder, so repeat guests do not see the same screen twice. Each clip in the folder can carry its own trigger, or you can share a single trigger across all of them.

Timeless runs a looping animation alongside the workflow instead of blocking it. It has Start and Stop modes: a Start step begins the loop and the workflow immediately moves on, and a later Stop step ends it.

Step	Plays	Blocks the flow	Use it for
Single	One chosen clip	Yes, until the trigger fires	Countdowns, instructions, branding, thank-you screens
Random	One random clip from a folder	Yes, until the trigger fires	Touch-to-start and idle screens that should feel varied
Timeless	One looping clip	No: Start and Stop are separate steps	Background loops, ambient overlays, music beds

Choosing the Media

All three steps pull their media from a category folder. The built-in categories are Compliment, Countdown, Email, End Workflow, Game, Get Ready, Miscellaneous, Preloader, Print, QR Code, SMS, and Touch To Start.

You can pick media from two libraries:

Select uses the media you have uploaded to the event or preset
fmLink uses Foto Master's shared media library, including the ready-made animation packs and their other-language variants

Every animation step also has a Mute option, which silences that clip's audio without changing the file.

New animation steps are added with no category selected on purpose. The node reads "No Animation" until you choose one, so a half-configured step is obvious on the canvas rather than silently defaulting to whatever media happens to be first in the list.

Triggers: What Advances the Flow

Single and Random steps stay on screen until their trigger fires. The available triggers are:

Playback Ended advances when the clip finishes: the natural default for a countdown or a transition
Time advances after a set number of seconds, regardless of the clip length
Touch advances when the guest taps the screen: the standard touch-to-start trigger
Media Saved advances once a captured photo or video has been written to disk
AI Processed advances when a Cloud AI step finishes: use it on your "please wait" screen
Payment advances after payment is processed, and takes a payment amount
Scan Done advances when a palm scan completes; it is Windows only
Proximity and Space Bar are also Windows only
Volume Changed is iPad only, and turns the volume button into a hardware shutter

When the trigger is Payment, Single and Random steps can also carry a payment QR placeholder: a rectangle you position over the video so FMX knows where to draw the Stripe or Shopify QR code while the animation plays.

Timeless steps have no trigger. They start, the workflow moves on, and they run until a Stop step ends them.

When to Use Each One

Use Single when you know exactly which clip should play. This covers most of a workflow: the countdown before Take Photo, the "smile" screen, the instructions before Sign & Draw, the thank-you screen after sharing.

Use Random when repetition would hurt the experience. The touch-to-start screen is the classic case: at a four-hour event the same guests walk past the booth dozens of times, and a folder of eight rotating attract screens keeps it alive. Random is also good for compliment screens after capture, where variety makes the booth feel responsive rather than scripted.

Use Timeless when something should be visible behind other steps rather than instead of them. Typical cases:

A branded background loop that runs under the selection screen and the capture steps
A foreground overlay such as a falling-confetti layer during a result reveal
An ambient music bed that starts at the beginning of the session and stops at the end

Set Foreground or Background on the Timeless step to control whether it draws over or under the rest of the interface.

Common Mistakes

Forgetting the Stop step. A Timeless animation started with no matching Stop keeps looping for the rest of the session. Always pair Start with Stop, and use the Stop step's reference field to point at the Start step it closes.

Using Playback Ended on a looping clip. A clip that loops never ends, so the trigger never fires and the workflow stalls. Use Time or Touch instead.

Using a Single step where the guest needs to act. If the guest is meant to tap, use the Touch trigger, not a Time trigger with a guessed duration.

Leaving a Live View step running under an animation. If a full-screen animation covers the camera feed, stop Live View first: leaving it running wastes camera time and, on tethered DSLRs, can leave the camera in the wrong mode for the next capture.

Choosing a trigger the platform does not have. Proximity and Space Bar do not exist on iPad; Volume Changed does not exist on Windows. Build and test on the platform the event will actually run.

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