staging.director

The staging slice's entry point. Requiring it registers three services on the bus and nothing else needs to know the slice exists:

• Bus.services.fx — the impact language (sparks, dust, shake, hitstop, the screen flash, speed lines, cinematic bars).
• Bus.services.camera — the only thing that moves FightCamera.
• Bus.services.staging — the attract sequence and the staged moments.

local Director = require("emberline.staging.director")
Director.boot()                     -- builds the effect sheets, wires events
Director.Staging.playAttract()      -- the opening
Director.Staging.preview("heavy")   -- look at one beat on its own

Director.boot(opts) builds the effect sheets, resets the camera and starts the attract art building. Pass { eagerArt = true } to draw the attract art up front instead of spreading it a canvas per frame. Director.teardown() undoes all of it and leaves no listener, tween or timeline behind.

What it listens to

Every fight.* event the combat slice raises is already wired: hit and block pick a spark by the move's strength, land / jump / dash put dust on the floor, throwLand lands like a heavy plus dust, superStart runs the super's camera move, ko runs the knockout, and roundStart ends the opening and plays the round-start push-in. Listeners are registered under the tag staging, so a hot reload never stacks a second copy.

The timelines

A timeline is a coroutine driven from update: wait(seconds) between beats, tween(dur, fn) for anything that has to move every frame while the beats keep coming. Starting one cancels the one before it, and Staging.stop() cancels whatever is running — so this slice never leaves a task ticking.

• playAttract() — the opening: a pan across Kessai, the Emberline crossing behind the viaduct, the Ember held close, the title, the three fighters slamming in one at a time, a push-in on the Warden, then the title and the prompt.
• playIntro(data) — the round-start push-in.
• playSuper(data) — freeze, white out, snap onto the fighter, speed lines.
• playKo(data) — freeze, white out, slow motion, and the camera falling onto whoever hit the ground.
• playEnding() — the Ember rises out of the smog and the camera follows it.
• preview(what) — play one beat by name, for looking at it on its own.

Two things it writes that other slices read

• Bus.state.hitstop — frames the fight should not advance for.
• Bus.state.timeScale — 1.0 normally, dropped during the knockout and ramped back over about two and a half seconds.