CINEMA: Coherent Multi-Subject Video Generation via MLLM-Based Guidance
On the map: Diffusion models → Video generation
Abstract (arXiv)
Video generation has witnessed remarkable progress with the advent of deep generative models, particularly diffusion models. While existing methods excel in generating high-quality videos from text prompts or single images, personalized multi-subject video generation remains a largely unexplored challenge. This task involves synthesizing videos that incorporate multiple distinct subjects, each defined by separate reference images, while ensuring temporal and spatial consistency. Current approaches primarily rely on mapping subject images to keywords in text prompts, which introduces ambiguity and limits their ability to model subject relationships effectively. In this paper, we propose CINEMA, a novel framework for coherent multi-subject video generation by leveraging Multimodal Large Language Model (MLLM). Our approach eliminates the need for explicit correspondences between subject images and text entities, mitigating ambiguity and reducing annotation effort. By leveraging MLLM to interpret subject relationships, our method facilitates scalability, enabling the use of large and diverse datasets for training. Furthermore, our framework can be conditioned on varying numbers of subjects, offering greater flexibility in personalized content creation. Through extensive evaluations, we demonstrate that our approach significantly improves subject consistency, and overall video coherence, paving the way for advanced applications in storytelling, interactive media, and personalized video generation.
Key facts. Cited by 19 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Video generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 52 of its 59 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 Mar 2025.
Builds on
52 of 59 references.
Closest ancestors · 12
Same direction, newest first
- 2025ConceptMaster: Multi-Concept Video Customization on Diffusion Transformer Models Without Test-Time Tuning8 Jan
- 2024CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer12 Aug
- 2024StoryDiffusion: Consistent Self-Attention for Long-Range Image and Video Generation2 May
- 2024CustomVideo: Customizing Text-to-Video Generation with Multiple Subjects18 Jan
- 2023I2V-Adapter: A General Image-to-Video Adapter for Diffusion Models27 Dec
- 2023Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets25 Nov
- 2023I2VGen-XL: High-Quality Image-to-Video Synthesis via Cascaded Diffusion Models7 Nov
- 2023SEINE: Short-to-Long Video Diffusion Model for Generative Transition and Prediction31 Oct
- 2023VideoCrafter1: Open Diffusion Models for High-Quality Video Generation30 Oct
- 2023DynamiCrafter: Animating Open-domain Images with Video Diffusion Priors18 Oct
- 2023Language Model Beats Diffusion -- Tokenizer is Key to Visual Generation9 Oct
- 2023AnimateDiff: Animate Your Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models without Specific Tuning10 Jul
Other references · 40
- 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 60,361
- 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
- 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,419
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
- 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,713
- 2019Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformercited by 14,599
- 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,380
- 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 9,122
- 2023Visual Instruction Tuningcited by 7,869
- 2023BLIP-2: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training with Frozen Image Encoders and Large Language Modelscited by 6,137
- 2022Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformerscited by 6,054
- 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,587
28 more
- 2022PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathwayscited by 5,326
- 2015You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detectioncited by 4,852
- 2017Neural Discrete Representation Learningcited by 4,712
- 2024Qwen2-VL: Enhancing Vision-Language Model's Perception of the World at Any Resolutioncited by 4,234
- 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,181
- 2022Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervisioncited by 4,057
- 2023Grounding DINO: Marrying DINO with Grounded Pre-Training for Open-Set Object Detectioncited by 3,332
- 2022DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generationcited by 3,300
- 2024SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videoscited by 2,863
- 2024HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Modelscited by 1,660
- 2023IP-Adapter: Text Compatible Image Prompt Adapter for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1,464
- 2021Perceiver: General Perception with Iterative Attentioncited by 1,104
- 2024WorldSimBench: Towards Video Generation Models as World Simulatorscited by 881
- 2022MAGVIT: Masked Generative Video Transformercited by 346
- 2024Identity-Preserving Text-to-Video Generation by Frequency Decompositioncited by 158
- 2024MS-Diffusion: Multi-subject Zero-shot Image Personalization with Layout Guidancecited by 144
- 2023Make Pixels Dance: High-Dynamic Video Generationcited by 140
- 2025Phantom: Subject-consistent video generation via cross-modal alignmentcited by 129
- 2024ChronoMagic-Bench: A Benchmark for Metamorphic Evaluation of Text-to-Time-lapse Video Generationcited by 75
- 2024Allegro: Open the Black Box of Commercial-Level Video Generation Modelcited by 70
- 2025Multi-subject Open-set Personalization in Video Generationcited by 66
- 2024CustomCrafter: Customized Video Generation with Preserving Motion and Concept Composition Abilitiescited by 60
- 2024WF-VAE: Enhancing Video VAE by Wavelet-Driven Energy Flow for Latent Video Diffusion Modelcited by 57
- 2024MagicTime: Time-lapse Video Generation Models as Metamorphic Simulatorscited by 51
- 2024FreeCustom: Tuning-Free Customized Image Generation for Multi-Concept Compositioncited by 49
- 2024DreamVideo-2: Zero-Shot Subject-Driven Video Customization with Precise Motion Controlcited by 43
- 2025VideoWorld: Exploring Knowledge Learning from Unlabeled Videoscited by 43
- 2024SUGAR: Subject-Driven Video Customization in a Zero-Shot Mannercited by 12
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 8; 2026: 11.
19 papers.
Sort:
By area:
- 2025OpenS2V-Nexus: A Detailed Benchmark and Million-Scale Dataset for Subject-to-Video Generationcited by 73
- 2026Rethinking Video Generation Model for the Embodied Worldcited by 33
- 2025MAGREF: Masked Guidance for Any-Reference Video Generation with Subject Disentanglementcited by 23
- 2025DreamActor-H1: High-Fidelity Human-Product Demonstration Video Generation via Motion-designed Diffusion Transformerscited by 22
- 2025Phantom-Data : Towards a General Subject-Consistent Video Generation Datasetcited by 17
- 2026RefAlign: Representation Alignment for Reference-to-Video Generationcited by 10
- 2025AnimeShooter: A Multi-Shot Animation Dataset for Reference-Guided Video Generationcited by 8
- 2026ARGUS: Stacked Multi-View Identity Mosaic Injection for Subject-Preserving Video Generationcited by 7
- 2025ID-Crafter: VLM-Grounded Online RL for Compositional Multi-Subject Video Generationcited by 6
- 2025ContextAnyone: Context-Aware Diffusion for Character-Consistent Text-to-Video Generationcited by 5
- 2026TS-Attn: Temporal-wise Separable Attention for Multi-Event Video Generationcited by 4
- 2025PrefGen: Multimodal Preference Learning for Preference-Conditioned Image Generationcited by 3
7 more
- 2026LibraGen: Playing a Balance Game in Subject-Driven Video Generationcited by 2
- 2026UniCustom: Unified Visual Conditioning for Multi-Reference Image Generationcited by 2
- 2026Aura: Consistent Multi-Subject Video Generation via VLM-Grounded Semantic Alignmentcited by 2
- 2026DomainShuttle: Freeform Open Domain Subject-driven Text-to-video Generationcited by 1
- 2026HOMIE: Human-object Centric Video Personalization via Multimodal Intelligent Enhancementcited by 1
- 2026HECTOR: Hybrid Editable Compositional Object References for Video Generationcited by 0
- 2026Customizing Video Portraits via Identity-ActionDecouplingcited by 0
- 2026HOMIE: Human-object Centric Video Personalization via Multimodal Intelligent Enhancement20 Jul 2026
- 2026Aura: Consistent Multi-Subject Video Generation via VLM-Grounded Semantic Alignment5 Jul 2026
- 2026DomainShuttle: Freeform Open Domain Subject-driven Text-to-video Generation24 Jun 2026
- 2026Customizing Video Portraits via Identity-ActionDecoupling21 Jun 2026
- 2026ARGUS: Stacked Multi-View Identity Mosaic Injection for Subject-Preserving Video Generation10 Jun 2026
- 2026UniCustom: Unified Visual Conditioning for Multi-Reference Image Generation12 May 2026
- 2026TS-Attn: Temporal-wise Separable Attention for Multi-Event Video Generation21 Apr 2026
- 2026RefAlign: Representation Alignment for Reference-to-Video Generation26 Mar 2026
- 2026LibraGen: Playing a Balance Game in Subject-Driven Video Generation13 Mar 2026
- 2026HECTOR: Hybrid Editable Compositional Object References for Video Generation9 Mar 2026
- 2026Rethinking Video Generation Model for the Embodied World21 Jan 2026
- 2025ContextAnyone: Context-Aware Diffusion for Character-Consistent Text-to-Video Generation8 Dec 2025
7 more
- 2025PrefGen: Multimodal Preference Learning for Preference-Conditioned Image Generation4 Dec 2025
- 2025ID-Crafter: VLM-Grounded Online RL for Compositional Multi-Subject Video Generation1 Nov 2025
- 2025Phantom-Data : Towards a General Subject-Consistent Video Generation Dataset23 Jun 2025
- 2025DreamActor-H1: High-Fidelity Human-Product Demonstration Video Generation via Motion-designed Diffusion Transformers12 Jun 2025
- 2025AnimeShooter: A Multi-Shot Animation Dataset for Reference-Guided Video Generation3 Jun 2025
- 2025MAGREF: Masked Guidance for Any-Reference Video Generation with Subject Disentanglement29 May 2025
- 2025OpenS2V-Nexus: A Detailed Benchmark and Million-Scale Dataset for Subject-to-Video Generation26 May 2025
- 2025OpenS2V-Nexus: A Detailed Benchmark and Million-Scale Dataset for Subject-to-Video Generationcited by 73
- 2026Rethinking Video Generation Model for the Embodied Worldcited by 33
- 2025MAGREF: Masked Guidance for Any-Reference Video Generation with Subject Disentanglementcited by 23
- 2025Phantom-Data : Towards a General Subject-Consistent Video Generation Datasetcited by 17
- 2026RefAlign: Representation Alignment for Reference-to-Video Generationcited by 10
- 2025AnimeShooter: A Multi-Shot Animation Dataset for Reference-Guided Video Generationcited by 8
- 2026ARGUS: Stacked Multi-View Identity Mosaic Injection for Subject-Preserving Video Generationcited by 7
- 2025ID-Crafter: VLM-Grounded Online RL for Compositional Multi-Subject Video Generationcited by 6
- 2025ContextAnyone: Context-Aware Diffusion for Character-Consistent Text-to-Video Generationcited by 5
- 2026TS-Attn: Temporal-wise Separable Attention for Multi-Event Video Generationcited by 4
- 2026UniCustom: Unified Visual Conditioning for Multi-Reference Image Generationcited by 2
- 2026Aura: Consistent Multi-Subject Video Generation via VLM-Grounded Semantic Alignmentcited by 2
12 most cited of 16 All 16 (JSON)
- 2026HOMIE: Human-object Centric Video Personalization via Multimodal Intelligent Enhancement20 Jul 2026
- 2026Aura: Consistent Multi-Subject Video Generation via VLM-Grounded Semantic Alignment5 Jul 2026
- 2026DomainShuttle: Freeform Open Domain Subject-driven Text-to-video Generation24 Jun 2026
- 2026Customizing Video Portraits via Identity-ActionDecoupling21 Jun 2026
- 2026ARGUS: Stacked Multi-View Identity Mosaic Injection for Subject-Preserving Video Generation10 Jun 2026
- 2026UniCustom: Unified Visual Conditioning for Multi-Reference Image Generation12 May 2026
- 2026TS-Attn: Temporal-wise Separable Attention for Multi-Event Video Generation21 Apr 2026
- 2026RefAlign: Representation Alignment for Reference-to-Video Generation26 Mar 2026
- 2026HECTOR: Hybrid Editable Compositional Object References for Video Generation9 Mar 2026
- 2026Rethinking Video Generation Model for the Embodied World21 Jan 2026
- 2025ContextAnyone: Context-Aware Diffusion for Character-Consistent Text-to-Video Generation8 Dec 2025
- 2025ID-Crafter: VLM-Grounded Online RL for Compositional Multi-Subject Video Generation1 Nov 2025
12 newest of 16 All 16 (JSON)
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2025BindWeave: Subject-Consistent Video Generation via Cross-Modal Integration
- 2023MovieFactory: Automatic Movie Creation from Text using Large Generative Models for Language and Images
- 2024VIMI: Grounding Video Generation through Multi-modal Instruction
- 2023VideoDreamer: Customized Multi-Subject Text-to-Video Generation with Disen-Mix Finetuning on Language-Video Foundation Models
- 2023DirecT2V: Large Language Models are Frame-Level Directors for Zero-Shot Text-to-Video Generation
- 2024VideoStudio: Generating Consistent-Content and Multi-Scene Videos
- 2026MLLM-Guided Semantic Correction for Text-to-Video Generation
- 2025Captain Cinema: Towards Short Movie Generation