# SPG: Improving Motion Diffusion by Smooth Perturbation Guidance

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.02577 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02577/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Video generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 44 of its 52 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Mar 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Video generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/video-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 44)

- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01952/) (2023)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [Align your Latents: High-Resolution Video Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08818/) (2023)
- [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)
- [Executing your Commands via Motion Diffusion in Latent Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04048/) (2022)
- [MotionGPT: Human Motion as a Foreign Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14795/) (2023)
- [Action-Conditioned 3D Human Motion Synthesis with Transformer VAE](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.05670/) (2021)
- [DynamiCrafter: Animating Open-domain Images with Video Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.12190/) (2023)
- [Action2Motion: Conditioned Generation of 3D Human Motions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.15240/) (2020)
- [Human Motion Diffusion as a Generative Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.01418/) (2023)
- [The KIT Motion-Language Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.03827/) (2016)
- [Guiding a Diffusion Model with a Bad Version of Itself](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02507/) (2024)
- [ReMoDiffuse: Retrieval-Augmented Motion Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01116/) (2023)
- [OmniControl: Control Any Joint at Any Time for Human Motion Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08580/) (2023)
- [Guided Motion Diffusion for Controllable Human Motion Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.12577/) (2023)
- [MoFusion: A Framework for Denoising-Diffusion-based Motion Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04495/) (2022)
- [Listen, Denoise, Action! Audio-Driven Motion Synthesis with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09707/) (2022)
- [InstantStyle: Free Lunch towards Style-Preserving in Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02733/) (2024)
- [Improving Sample Quality of Diffusion Models Using Self-Attention Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00939/) (2022)
- [Implicit Style-Content Separation using B-LoRA](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14572/) (2024)
- [Self-Rectifying Diffusion Sampling with Perturbed-Attention Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17377/) (2024)
- [Avatars Grow Legs: Generating Smooth Human Motion from Sparse Tracking Inputs with Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08577/) (2023)
- [Flexible Motion In-betweening with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11126/) (2024)
- [Single Motion Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05905/) (2023)
- [Visual Style Prompting with Swapping Self-Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12974/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Stochastic Self-Guidance for Training-Free Enhancement of Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.12880/) (2025)
- [AudioMoG: Guiding Audio Generation with Mixture-of-Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.23727/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper presents a test-time guidance method to improve the output quality of the human motion diffusion models without requiring additional training. To have negative guidance, Smooth Perturbation Guidance (SPG) builds a weak model by temporally smoothing the motion in the denoising steps. Compared to model-agnostic methods originating from the image generation field, SPG effectively mitigates out-of-distribution issues when perturbing motion diffusion models. In SPG guidance, the nature of motion structure remains intact. This work conducts a comprehensive analysis across distinct model architectures and tasks. Despite its extremely simple implementation and no need for additional training requirements, SPG consistently enhances motion fidelity. Project page can be found at https://spg-blind.vercel.app/