State Machines provide a graphical way to break the animation of a Skeletal Mesh into a series of States. These states are then governed by Transition Rules that control how to blend from one state to another. As a tool, they greatly simplify the design process for Skeletal Mesh animation, in that you can create a graph that easily controls how your characters can flow between types of animation without having to create a complex Blueprint network.
Below you will find the information and tutorials for working with State Machines in Unreal Engine 4.