# Decoupled Diffusion Sparks Adaptive Scene Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10485 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.10485/

## Key facts

- Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 59 of its 68 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Apr 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 59)

- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [nuScenes: A multimodal dataset for autonomous driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.11027/) (2019)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [Scalability in Perception for Autonomous Driving: Waymo Open Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04838/) (2019)
- [CARLA: An Open Urban Driving Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.03938/) (2017)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [Decoupled Weight Decay Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.05101/) (2017)
- [Consistency Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.01469/) (2023)
- [Planning-oriented Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.10156/) (2022)
- [Planning with Diffusion for Flexible Behavior Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.09991/) (2022)
- [Diffusion Forcing: Next-token Prediction Meets Full-Sequence Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.01392/) (2024)
- [Perceiver IO: A General Architecture for Structured Inputs & Outputs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.14795/) (2021)
- [NuPlan: A closed-loop ML-based planning benchmark for autonomous vehicles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.11810/) (2021)
- [End-to-end Autonomous Driving: Challenges and Frontiers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16927/) (2023)
- [TransFuser: Imitation with Transformer-Based Sensor Fusion for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15997/) (2022)
- [Simple diffusion: End-to-end diffusion for high resolution images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11093/) (2023)
- [Vista: A Generalizable Driving World Model with High Fidelity and Versatile Controllability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17398/) (2024)
- [DiffusionDrive: Truncated Diffusion Model for End-to-End Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15139/) (2024)
- [MetaDrive: Composing Diverse Driving Scenarios for Generalizable Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.12674/) (2021)
- [NuScenes-QA: A Multi-modal Visual Question Answering Benchmark for Autonomous Driving Scenario](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14836/) (2023)
- [Parting with Misconceptions about Learning-based Vehicle Motion Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.07962/) (2023)
- [Diffusion-based Generation, Optimization, and Planning in 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.06015/) (2023)
- [MotionDiffuser: Controllable Multi-Agent Motion Prediction using Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03083/) (2023)
- [Guided Conditional Diffusion for Controllable Traffic Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.17366/) (2022)
- [Panacea: Panoramic and Controllable Video Generation for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16813/) (2023)
- [MotionLM: Multi-Agent Motion Forecasting as Language Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16534/) (2023)
- [NeuRAD: Neural Rendering for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15260/) (2023)

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

- [3D and 4D World Modeling: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.07996/) (2025)
- [SimScale: Learning to Drive via Real-World Simulation at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.23369/) (2025)
- [Reinforced Refinement with Self-Aware Expansion for End-to-End Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09800/) (2025)
- [Agentic Environment Engineering for Large Language Models: A Survey of Environment Modeling, Synthesis, Evaluation, and Application](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.12191/) (2026)
- [World Engine: Towards the Era of Post-Training for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.19836/) (2026)
- [RIFT: Group-Relative RL Fine-Tuning for Realistic and Controllable Traffic Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.03344/) (2025)
- [nuPlan-R: A Closed-Loop Planning Benchmark for Autonomous Driving via Reactive Multi-Agent Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.10403/) (2025)
- [Optimization-Guided Diffusion for Interactive Scene Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07661/) (2025)
- [PrITTI: Primitive-based Generation of Controllable and Editable 3D Semantic Urban Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.19117/) (2025)
- [Bridging Local Observation and Global Simulation in Closed-Loop Traffic Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31844/) (2026)
- [DriveWeaver: Point-Conditioned Video Inpainting for Controllable Vehicle Insertion in Autonomous Driving Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31918/) (2026)
- [Flow-ERD: Agent-type Aware Flow Matching with Entropy-Regularized Distillation for Diverse Traffic Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06957/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Controllable scene generation could reduce the cost of diverse data collection substantially for autonomous driving. Prior works formulate the traffic layout generation as predictive progress, either by denoising entire sequences at once or by iteratively predicting the next frame. However, full sequence denoising hinders online reaction, while the latter's short-sighted next-frame prediction lacks precise goal-state guidance. Further, the learned model struggles to generate complex or challenging scenarios due to a large number of safe and ordinal driving behaviors from open datasets. To overcome these, we introduce Nexus, a decoupled scene generation framework that improves reactivity and goal conditioning by simulating both ordinal and challenging scenarios from fine-grained tokens with independent noise states. At the core of the decoupled pipeline is the integration of a partial noise-masking training strategy and a noise-aware schedule that ensures timely environmental updates throughout the denoising process. To complement challenging scenario generation, we collect a dataset consisting of complex corner cases. It covers 540 hours of simulated data, including high-risk interactions such as cut-in, sudden braking, and collision. Nexus achieves superior generation realism while preserving reactivity and goal orientation, with a 40% reduction in displacement error. We further demonstrate that Nexus improves closed-loop planning by 20% through data augmentation and showcase its capability in safety-critical data generation.