Finite State Machines

What is a Finite State Machine?

A Finite State Machine (FSM) organizes behaviors into discrete states:

On, Off, Open, Closed, Idle, Walking, Attacking, Defending, ...

Transitions between states are triggered by Events:

Turn On, Turn Off, Unlock, Destroy, ...

PlayMaker represents states and transitions visually in a Graph View:

#	UI	Description
	Start Event	Activates the first state, knows as the Start State.
	State	States run actions and receive events.
	Transition	Events trigger transitions to other states.
	Global Transition	Can be triggered at any time, regardless of the active state. Similar to Any State transitions in other systems like Mecanim.
	End State	The FSM stops running when it reaches an End State.