# LayerAnimate: Layer-level Control for Animation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.08295 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.08295/

## Key facts

- Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 43 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jan 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 43)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [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)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00714/) (2024)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [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)
- [Imagen Video: High Definition Video Generation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02303/) (2022)
- [Make-A-Video: Text-to-Video Generation without Text-Video Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14792/) (2022)
- [HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03603/) (2024)
- [AnimateDiff: Animate Your Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models without Specific Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04725/) (2023)
- [Animate Anyone: Consistent and Controllable Image-to-Video Synthesis for Character Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17117/) (2023)
- [Open-Sora: Democratizing Efficient Video Production for All](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20404/) (2024)
- [Movie Gen: A Cast of Media Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13720/) (2024)
- [LTX-Video: Realtime Video Latent Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.00103/) (2024)
- [VideoCrafter1: Open Diffusion Models for High-Quality Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.19512/) (2023)
- [Sora: A Review on Background, Technology, Limitations, and Opportunities of Large Vision Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17177/) (2024)
- [DynamiCrafter: Animating Open-domain Images with Video Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.12190/) (2023)
- [VideoComposer: Compositional Video Synthesis with Motion Controllability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.02018/) (2023)
- [Latent Video Diffusion Models for High-Fidelity Long Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13221/) (2022)
- [Pyramidal Flow Matching for Efficient Video Generative Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.05954/) (2024)
- [I2VGen-XL: High-Quality Image-to-Video Synthesis via Cascaded Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04145/) (2023)
- [Open-Sora Plan: Open-Source Large Video Generation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00131/) (2024)
- [Unifying Flow, Stereo and Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.05783/) (2022)
- [SEINE: Short-to-Long Video Diffusion Model for Generative Transition and Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.20700/) (2023)
- [SparseCtrl: Adding Sparse Controls to Text-to-Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16933/) (2023)
- [Tora: Trajectory-oriented Diffusion Transformer for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21705/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Controllable Video Generation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.16869/) (2025)
- [MotionStream: Real-Time Video Generation with Interactive Motion Controls](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.01266/) (2025)
- [NeoVerse: Enhancing 4D World Model with in-the-wild Monocular Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.00393/) (2026)
- [VFXMaster: Unlocking Dynamic Visual Effect Generation via In-Context Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.25772/) (2025)
- [AceVFI: A Comprehensive Survey of Advances in Video Frame Interpolation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01061/) (2025)
- [See-through: Single-image Layer Decomposition for Anime Characters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03749/) (2026)
- [TimeColor: Flexible Reference Colorization via Temporal Concatenation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.00296/) (2026)
- [Workflow-Aware Structured Layer Decomposition for Illustration Production](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14925/) (2026)
- [InstanceAnimator: Multi-Instance Sketch Video Colorization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.25357/) (2026)
- [Streaming Video Generation with Streaming Force Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.07508/) (2026)
- [Uni-Animator: Towards Unified Visual Colorization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.23191/) (2026)
- [PeCA: Palette Context Assisted Inference for Test-Time Paint-Bucket Colourisation on Animation Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.00903/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Traditional animation production decomposes visual elements into discrete layers to enable independent processing for sketching, refining, coloring, and in-betweening. Existing anime generation video methods typically treat animation as a distinct data domain different from real-world videos, lacking fine-grained control at the layer level. To bridge this gap, we introduce LayerAnimate, a novel video diffusion framework with layer-aware architecture that empowers the manipulation of layers through layer-level controls. The development of a layer-aware framework faces a significant data scarcity challenge due to the commercial sensitivity of professional animation assets. To address the limitation, we propose a data curation pipeline featuring Automated Element Segmentation and Motion-based Hierarchical Merging. Through quantitative and qualitative comparisons, and user study, we demonstrate that LayerAnimate outperforms current methods in terms of animation quality, control precision, and usability, making it an effective tool for both professional animators and amateur enthusiasts. This framework opens up new possibilities for layer-level animation applications and creative flexibility. Our code is available at https://layeranimate.github.io.