# EMO: Emote Portrait Alive -- Generating Expressive Portrait Videos with Audio2Video Diffusion Model under Weak Conditions

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.17485 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17485/

## Key facts

- Cited by 235 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Audio, speech and music, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 34 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 Feb 2024.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Audio, speech and music](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/audio-speech-and-music/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [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)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [LAION-5B: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08402/) (2022)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [AnimateDiff: Animate Your Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models without Specific Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04725/) (2023)
- [Magic3D: High-Resolution Text-to-3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10440/) (2022)
- [Imagic: Text-Based Real Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.09276/) (2022)
- [Animate Anyone: Consistent and Controllable Image-to-Video Synthesis for Character Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17117/) (2023)
- [A Lip Sync Expert Is All You Need for Speech to Lip Generation In The Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.10010/) (2020)
- [MediaPipe: A Framework for Building Perception Pipelines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.08172/) (2019)
- [Latte: Latent Diffusion Transformer for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03048/) (2024)
- [Accurate 3D Face Reconstruction with Weakly-Supervised Learning: From Single Image to Image Set](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.08527/) (2019)
- [Lumiere: A Space-Time Diffusion Model for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.12945/) (2024)
- [SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12194/) (2022)
- [I2VGen-XL: High-Quality Image-to-Video Synthesis via Cascaded Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04145/) (2023)
- [MakeItTalk: Speaker-Aware Talking-Head Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.12992/) (2020)
- [DragDiffusion: Harnessing Diffusion Models for Interactive Point-based Image Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14435/) (2023)
- [CelebV-HQ: A Large-Scale Video Facial Attributes Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12393/) (2022)
- [FaceFormer: Speech-Driven 3D Facial Animation with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05329/) (2021)
- [VFHQ: A High-Quality Dataset and Benchmark for Video Face Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.03409/) (2022)
- [Diffused Heads: Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Talking-Face Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.03396/) (2023)
- [TryOnDiffusion: A Tale of Two UNets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.08276/) (2023)
- [DiffTalk: Crafting Diffusion Models for Generalized Audio-Driven Portraits Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.03786/) (2023)
- [Real3D-Portrait: One-shot Realistic 3D Talking Portrait Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08503/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 235)

- [HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03603/) (2024)
- [LivePortrait: Efficient Portrait Animation with Stitching and Retargeting Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.03168/) (2024)
- [EchoMimic: Lifelike Audio-Driven Portrait Animations through Editable Landmark Conditions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08136/) (2024)
- [AniPortrait: Audio-Driven Synthesis of Photorealistic Portrait Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17694/) (2024)
- [VASA-1: Lifelike Audio-Driven Talking Faces Generated in Real Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10667/) (2024)
- [Matrix-game 2.0: An open-source real-time and streaming interactive world model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.13009/) (2025)
- [Follow-Your-Emoji: Fine-Controllable and Expressive Freestyle Portrait Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01900/) (2024)
- [OmniHuman-1: Rethinking the Scaling-Up of One-Stage Conditioned Human Animation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.01061/) (2025)
- [Hallo3: Highly Dynamic and Realistic Portrait Image Animation with Video Diffusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00733/) (2024)
- [CamI2V: Camera-Controlled Image-to-Video Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15957/) (2024)
- [Loopy: Taming Audio-Driven Portrait Avatar with Long-Term Motion Dependency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02634/) (2024)
- [Hallo2: Long-Duration and High-Resolution Audio-Driven Portrait Image Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07718/) (2024)
- [DeMamba: AI-Generated Video Detection on Million-Scale GenVideo Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19707/) (2024)
- [Autoregressive Adversarial Post-Training for Real-Time Interactive Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09350/) (2025)
- [V-Express: Conditional Dropout for Progressive Training of Portrait Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02511/) (2024)
- [MotionStream: Real-Time Video Generation with Interactive Motion Controls](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.01266/) (2025)
- [EchoMimicV2: Towards Striking, Simplified, and Semi-Body Human Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10061/) (2024)
- [Sonic: Shifting Focus to Global Audio Perception in Portrait Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16331/) (2024)
- [Progressive Autoregressive Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08151/) (2024)
- [Deepfake Generation and Detection: A Benchmark and Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17881/) (2024)
- [Let Them Talk: Audio-Driven Multi-Person Conversational Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22647/) (2025)
- [Animate Anyone 2: High-Fidelity Character Image Animation with Environment Affordance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.06145/) (2025)
- [Wan-S2V: Audio-Driven Cinematic Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.18621/) (2025)
- [A Comprehensive Review of Multimodal Large Language Models: Performance and Challenges Across Different Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01319/) (2024)
- [RealCam-I2V: Real-World Image-to-Video Generation with Interactive Complex Camera Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.10059/) (2025)
- [LatentSync: Taming Audio-Conditioned Latent Diffusion Models for Lip Sync with SyncNet Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09262/) (2024)
- [CAP4D: Creating Animatable 4D Portrait Avatars with Morphable Multi-View Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12093/) (2024)
- [Long-Term TalkingFace Generation via Motion-Prior Conditional Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09533/) (2025)
- [StableAvatar: Infinite-Length Audio-Driven Avatar Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.08248/) (2025)
- [LAM: Large Avatar Model for One-shot Animatable Gaussian Head](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17796/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this work, we tackle the challenge of enhancing the realism and expressiveness in talking head video generation by focusing on the dynamic and nuanced relationship between audio cues and facial movements. We identify the limitations of traditional techniques that often fail to capture the full spectrum of human expressions and the uniqueness of individual facial styles. To address these issues, we propose EMO, a novel framework that utilizes a direct audio-to-video synthesis approach, bypassing the need for intermediate 3D models or facial landmarks. Our method ensures seamless frame transitions and consistent identity preservation throughout the video, resulting in highly expressive and lifelike animations. Experimental results demonsrate that EMO is able to produce not only convincing speaking videos but also singing videos in various styles, significantly outperforming existing state-of-the-art methodologies in terms of expressiveness and realism.