# Advances in 4D Generation: A Survey

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14501 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14501/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 136 of its 176 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 136)

- [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)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Emerging Properties in Self-Supervised Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14294/) (2021)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00593/) (2016)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09800/) (2022)
- [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)
- [VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17982/) (2023)
- [Make-A-Video: Text-to-Video Generation without Text-Video Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14792/) (2022)
- [Expressive Body Capture: 3D Hands, Face, and Body from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.05866/) (2019)
- [Objaverse: A Universe of Annotated 3D Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08051/) (2022)
- [World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.10122/) (2018)
- [Zero-1-to-3: Zero-shot One Image to 3D Object](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11328/) (2023)
- [Align your Latents: High-Resolution Video Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08818/) (2023)
- [D-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields for Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13961/) (2020)
- [Towards Accurate Generative Models of Video: A New Metric & Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01717/) (2018)
- [Nerfies: Deformable Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.12948/) (2020)
- [4D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Dynamic Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08528/) (2023)
- [MVDream: Multi-view Diffusion for 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.16512/) (2023)
- [WorldSimBench: Towards Video Generation Models as World Simulators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18072/) (2024)
- [Learning to Simulate Complex Physics with Graph Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.09405/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Embody4D: A Generalist Data Engine for Embodied 4D World Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.01799/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Generative artificial intelligence has recently progressed from static image and video synthesis to 3D content generation, culminating in the emergence of 4D generation-the task of synthesizing temporally coherent dynamic 3D assets guided by user input. As a burgeoning research frontier, 4D generation enables richer interactive and immersive experiences, with applications ranging from digital humans to autonomous driving. Despite rapid progress, the field lacks a unified understanding of 4D representations, generative frameworks, basic paradigms, and the core technical challenges it faces. This survey provides a systematic and in-depth review of the 4D generation landscape. To comprehensively characterize 4D generation, we first categorize fundamental 4D representations and outline associated techniques for 4D generation. We then present an in-depth analysis of representative generative pipelines based on conditions and representation methods. Subsequently, we discuss how motion and geometry priors are integrated into 4D outputs to ensure spatio-temporal consistency under various control schemes. From an application perspective, this paper summarizes 4D generation tasks in areas such as dynamic object/scene generation, digital human synthesis, editable 4D content, and embodied AI. Furthermore, we summarize and multi-dimensionally compare four basic paradigms for 4D generation: End-to-End, Generated-Data-Based, Implicit-Distillation-Based, and Explicit-Supervision-Based. Concluding our analysis, we highlight five key challenges-consistency, controllability, diversity, efficiency, and fidelity-and contextualize these with current approaches.By distilling recent advances and outlining open problems, this work offers a comprehensive and forward-looking perspective to guide future research in 4D generation.