# DNF: Unconditional 4D Generation with Dictionary-based Neural Fields

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.05161 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05161/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 48 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [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)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05103/) (2019)
- [Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.03458/) (2022)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [Occupancy Networks: Learning 3D Reconstruction in Function Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03828/) (2018)
- [Human Motion Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14916/) (2022)
- [MotionDiffuse: Text-Driven Human Motion Generation with Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.15001/) (2022)
- [Point-E: A System for Generating 3D Point Clouds from Complex Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08751/) (2022)
- [LION: Latent Point Diffusion Models for 3D Shape Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06978/) (2022)
- [3D Shape Generation and Completion through Point-Voxel Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03670/) (2021)
- [SDFusion: Multimodal 3D Shape Completion, Reconstruction, and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04493/) (2022)
- [3D Neural Field Generation using Triplane Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.16677/) (2022)
- [Direct3D: Scalable Image-to-3D Generation via 3D Latent Diffusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14832/) (2024)
- [STAR: Sparse Trained Articulated Human Body Regressor](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.08535/) (2020)
- [DiffuScene: Denoising Diffusion Models for Generative Indoor Scene Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14207/) (2023)
- [GestureDiffuCLIP: Gesture Diffusion Model with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14613/) (2023)
- [HyperDiffusion: Generating Implicit Neural Fields with Weight-Space Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17015/) (2023)
- [Diffusion-SDF: Conditional Generative Modeling of Signed Distance Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13757/) (2022)
- [4DComplete: Non-Rigid Motion Estimation Beyond the Observable Surface](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.01905/) (2021)
- [LN3DIFF++: Scalable Latent Neural Fields Diffusion for Speedy 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12019/) (2024)
- [NPMs: Neural Parametric Models for 3D Deformable Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00702/) (2021)
- [LT3SD: Latent Trees for 3D Scene Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.08215/) (2024)
- [Trellis Networks for Sequence Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.06682/) (2018)
- [DiffusionAvatars: Deferred Diffusion for High-fidelity 3D Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.18635/) (2023)
- [L3DG: Latent 3D Gaussian Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13530/) (2024)
- [DiffComplete: Diffusion-based Generative 3D Shape Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16329/) (2023)

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

- [AnyTop: Character Animation Diffusion with Any Topology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17327/) (2025)
- [PhysCtrl: Generative Physics for Controllable and Physics-Grounded Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.20358/) (2025)
- [Generative Modeling of Weights: Generalization or Memorization?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07998/) (2025)
- [BiMotion: B-spline Motion for Text-guided Dynamic 3D Character Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.18873/) (2026)
- [WorldMesh: Generating Navigable Multi-Room 3D Scenes via Mesh-Conditioned Image Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.22972/) (2026)
- [Seen2Scene: Completing Realistic 3D Scenes with Visibility-Guided Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.28548/) (2026)
- [UniMate: One Unified Model to Animate Diverse Skeletons](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05415/) (2026)
- [ArtHOI: Articulated Human-Object Interaction Synthesis by 4D Reconstruction from Video Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.04338/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

While remarkable success has been achieved through diffusion-based 3D generative models for shapes, 4D generative modeling remains challenging due to the complexity of object deformations over time. We propose DNF, a new 4D representation for unconditional generative modeling that efficiently models deformable shapes with disentangled shape and motion while capturing high-fidelity details in the deforming objects. To achieve this, we propose a dictionary learning approach to disentangle 4D motion from shape as neural fields. Both shape and motion are represented as learned latent spaces, where each deformable shape is represented by its shape and motion global latent codes, shape-specific coefficient vectors, and shared dictionary information. This captures both shape-specific detail and global shared information in the learned dictionary. Our dictionary-based representation well balances fidelity, contiguity and compression -- combined with a transformer-based diffusion model, our method is able to generate effective, high-fidelity 4D animations.