# CogCartoon: Towards Practical Story Visualization

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.10718 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10718/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 51 of its 61 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Dec 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 51)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [DistilBERT, a distilled version of BERT: smaller, faster, cheaper and lighter](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.01108/) (2019)
- [Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12092/) (2021)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10741/) (2021)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09800/) (2022)
- [Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01626/) (2022)
- [An Image is Worth One Word: Personalizing Text-to-Image Generation using Textual Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01618/) (2022)
- [Null-text Inversion for Editing Real Images using Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09794/) (2022)
- [Multi-Concept Customization of Text-to-Image Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04488/) (2022)
- [GLM-130B: An Open Bilingual Pre-trained Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02414/) (2022)
- [Generative Adversarial Text to Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.05396/) (2016)
- [CogView: Mastering Text-to-Image Generation via Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.13290/) (2021)
- [Simple Copy-Paste is a Strong Data Augmentation Method for Instance Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07177/) (2020)
- [StackGAN: Text to Photo-realistic Image Synthesis with Stacked Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.03242/) (2016)
- [Zero-shot Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03027/) (2023)
- [Paint by Example: Exemplar-based Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13227/) (2022)
- [FastComposer: Tuning-Free Multi-Subject Image Generation with Localized Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10431/) (2023)
- [CogView2: Faster and Better Text-to-Image Generation via Hierarchical Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.14217/) (2022)
- [Mix-of-Show: Decentralized Low-Rank Adaptation for Multi-Concept Customization of Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18292/) (2023)
- [StyleGAN-T: Unlocking the Power of GANs for Fast Large-Scale Text-to-Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.09515/) (2023)
- [ManiGAN: Text-Guided Image Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.06203/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Mind the Time: Temporally-Controlled Multi-Event Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05263/) (2024)
- [StoryImager: A Unified and Efficient Framework for Coherent Story Visualization and Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.05979/) (2024)
- [Generative AI for Cel-Animation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.06250/) (2025)
- [FairyGen: Storied Cartoon Video from a Single Child-Drawn Character](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.21272/) (2025)
- [ViSTA: Visual Storytelling using Multi-modal Adapters for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12198/) (2025)
- [LinkTo-Anime: A 2D Animation Optical Flow Dataset from 3D Model Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02733/) (2025)
- [FreeStory: Training-Free Character Consistency for Free-Form Visual Storytelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.25079/) (2026)
- [Sidecar: Training-Free Semantic Reuse for Character-Consistent Free-form Visual Storytelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.27280/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The state-of-the-art methods for story visualization demonstrate a significant demand for training data and storage, as well as limited flexibility in story presentation, thereby rendering them impractical for real-world applications. We introduce CogCartoon, a practical story visualization method based on pre-trained diffusion models. To alleviate dependence on data and storage, we propose an innovative strategy of character-plugin generation that can represent a specific character as a compact 316 KB plugin by using a few training samples. To facilitate enhanced flexibility, we employ a strategy of plugin-guided and layout-guided inference, enabling users to seamlessly incorporate new characters and custom layouts into the generated image results at their convenience. We have conducted comprehensive qualitative and quantitative studies, providing compelling evidence for the superiority of CogCartoon over existing methodologies. Moreover, CogCartoon demonstrates its power in tackling challenging tasks, including long story visualization and realistic style story visualization.