# Gaussian Variation Field Diffusion for High-fidelity Video-to-4D Synthesis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.23785 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.23785/

## Key facts

- Cited by 33 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in 3D, point cloud and scene generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 93 of its 103 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 31 Jul 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [3D, point cloud and scene generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/3d-point-cloud-and-scene-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 93)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [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)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Steps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00927/) (2022)
- [Imagen Video: High Definition Video Generation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02303/) (2022)
- [HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03603/) (2024)
- [Objaverse: A Universe of Annotated 3D Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08051/) (2022)
- [Zero-1-to-3: Zero-shot One Image to 3D Object](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11328/) (2023)
- [Root Mean Square Layer Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.07467/) (2019)
- [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)
- [AnimateDiff: Animate Your Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models without Specific Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04725/) (2023)
- [ProlificDreamer: High-Fidelity and Diverse Text-to-3D Generation with Variational Score Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16213/) (2023)
- [Efficient Geometry-aware 3D Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07945/) (2021)
- [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)
- [Perceiver: General Perception with Iterative Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03206/) (2021)
- [MVDream: Multi-view Diffusion for 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.16512/) (2023)
- [LRM: Large Reconstruction Model for Single Image to 3D](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04400/) (2023)
- [DreamGaussian: Generative Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16653/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [ShapeGen4D: Towards High Quality 4D Shape Generation from Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.06208/) (2025)
- [UniLat3D: Geometry-Appearance Unified Latents for Single-Stage 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.25079/) (2025)
- [Motion 3-to-4: 3D Motion Reconstruction for 4D Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.14253/) (2026)
- [Mesh4D: 4D Mesh Reconstruction and Tracking from Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.05251/) (2026)
- [PerpetualWonder: Long-Horizon Action-Conditioned 4D Scene Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.04876/) (2026)
- [SS4D: Native 4D Generative Model via Structured Spacetime Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.14284/) (2025)
- [Choreographing a World of Dynamic Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.04194/) (2026)
- [World Tracing: Generative Pixel-Aligned Geometry Beyond the Visible](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.13652/) (2026)
- [BiMotion: B-spline Motion for Text-guided Dynamic 3D Character Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.18873/) (2026)
- [Syn4D: A Multiview Synthetic 4D Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.05207/) (2026)
- [Fast3Dcache: Training-free 3D Geometry Synthesis Acceleration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.22533/) (2025)
- [ViPS: Video-informed Pose Spaces for Auto-Rigged Meshes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.17623/) (2026)
- [Sculpt4D: Generating 4D Shapes via Sparse-Attention Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.21592/) (2026)
- [SWiT-4D: Sliding-Window Transformer for Lossless and Parameter-Free Temporal 4D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.10860/) (2025)
- [Spatial-Temporal State Propagation Autoregressive Model for 4D Object Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.18830/) (2026)
- [4DEquine: Disentangling Motion and Appearance for 4D Equine Reconstruction from Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.10125/) (2026)
- [Lift4D: Harmonizing Single-View 3D Estimation for 4D Reconstruction In-the-Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23688/) (2026)
- [PhysiFormer: Learning to Simulate Mechanics in World Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.27364/) (2026)
- [Inferring Compositional 4D Scenes without Ever Seeing One](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.05272/) (2025)
- [Fast 4D Mesh Generation by Spatio-Temporal Attention Chains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.19786/) (2026)
- [Helix4D: Complex 4D Mesh Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.26109/) (2026)
- [Follow Your Track: Precise Skeleton Animation Controlled by 3D Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.25344/) (2026)
- [UniMate: One Unified Model to Animate Diverse Skeletons](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05415/) (2026)
- [DevilSight: Augmenting Monocular Human Avatar Reconstruction through a Virtual Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.00403/) (2025)
- [ArtHOI: Articulated Human-Object Interaction Synthesis by 4D Reconstruction from Video Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.04338/) (2026)
- [Velox: Learning Representations of 4D Geometry and Appearance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.04527/) (2026)
- [SkelMo: Universal Skeletal Motion Generation for 3D Rigged Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.01518/) (2026)
- [MORPHOS: Autoregressive 4D Generation with Temporal Structured Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.02491/) (2026)
- [AnimaSpark: A Feed-Forward Method for Animating Arbitrary 3D Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.10988/) (2026)
- [DynaTok: Token-Based 4D Reconstruction from Partial Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.12189/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, we present a novel framework for video-to-4D generation that creates high-quality dynamic 3D content from single video inputs. Direct 4D diffusion modeling is extremely challenging due to costly data construction and the high-dimensional nature of jointly representing 3D shape, appearance, and motion. We address these challenges by introducing a Direct 4DMesh-to-GS Variation Field VAE that directly encodes canonical Gaussian Splats (GS) and their temporal variations from 3D animation data without per-instance fitting, and compresses high-dimensional animations into a compact latent space. Building upon this efficient representation, we train a Gaussian Variation Field diffusion model with temporal-aware Diffusion Transformer conditioned on input videos and canonical GS. Trained on carefully-curated animatable 3D objects from the Objaverse dataset, our model demonstrates superior generation quality compared to existing methods. It also exhibits remarkable generalization to in-the-wild video inputs despite being trained exclusively on synthetic data, paving the way for generating high-quality animated 3D content. Project page: https://gvfdiffusion.github.io/.