Animation and cinematic systems transform raw gameplay into a polished, emotional experience.
Lua is ideal for sequencing, orchestration, animation management, and camera scripting because:

• Coroutine syntax is perfect for timelines.
• Hot reload accelerates iteration.
• Data-driven tables make timelines readable.
• Engines expose animation/camera APIs easily.

In this chapter we build:

1. Animation state machines
2. Sprite animation system
3. Camera follow/zoom/lerp
4. Timeline scripting engine
5. Dialogue system
6. Cutscenes (with coroutines)
7. Screen/camera effects (shake, flash, fade)
8. Sequencers for complex cinematic flows

1. Animation State Machines (ASM)

Most games rely on an animation finite-state-machine:

Lua is one of the most influential technologies in game development.
It is lightweight, embeddable, fast, expressive, and battle-tested across decades.

In this chapter, we explore why Lua is still the #1 scripting language for games, how it fits into modern engines, and the core principles that make Lua unique.

1. What Makes Lua Special?

Lua was designed with one mission:

A small, fast scripting language that can glue complex systems together.