Skywork UniPic 2.0: Building Kontext Model with Online RL for Unified Multimodal Model
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Abstract (arXiv)
Recent advances in multimodal models have demonstrated impressive capabilities in unified image generation and editing. However, many prominent open-source models prioritize scaling model parameters over optimizing training strategies, limiting their efficiency and performance. In this work, we present UniPic2-SD3.5M-Kontext, a 2B-parameter DiT model based on SD3.5-Medium, which achieves state-of-the-art image generation and editing while extending seamlessly into a unified multimodal framework. Our approach begins with architectural modifications to SD3.5-Medium and large-scale pre-training on high-quality data, enabling joint text-to-image generation and editing capabilities. To enhance instruction following and editing consistency, we propose a novel Progressive Dual-Task Reinforcement strategy (PDTR), which effectively strengthens both tasks in a staged manner. We empirically validate that the reinforcement phases for different tasks are mutually beneficial and do not induce negative interference. After pre-training and reinforcement strategies, UniPic2-SD3.5M-Kontext demonstrates stronger image generation and editing capabilities than models with significantly larger generation parameters-including BAGEL (7B) and Flux-Kontext (12B). Furthermore, following the MetaQuery, we connect the UniPic2-SD3.5M-Kontext and Qwen2.5-VL-7B via a connector and perform joint training to launch a unified multimodal model UniPic2-Metaquery. UniPic2-Metaquery integrates understanding, generation, and editing, achieving top-tier performance across diverse tasks with a simple and scalable training paradigm. This consistently validates the effectiveness and generalizability of our proposed training paradigm, which we formalize as Skywork UniPic 2.0.
Key facts. Cited by 38 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 69 of its 76 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 4 Sep 2025.
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50 most cited of 69 All 69 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 11; 2026: 27.
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- 2025EditScore: Unlocking Online RL for Image Editing via High-Fidelity Reward Modelingcited by 61
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- 2026DeepGen 1.0: A Lightweight Unified Multimodal Model for Advancing Image Generation and Editing12 Feb 2026
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- 2026Joint Reward Modeling: Internalizing Chain-of-Thought for Efficient Visual Reward Models7 Feb 2026
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- 2026Understanding Reward Hacking in Text-to-Image Reinforcement Learning6 Jan 2026
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- 2025GIR-Bench: Versatile Benchmark for Generating Images with Reasoning13 Oct 2025
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- 2025Reconstruction Alignment Improves Unified Multimodal Models8 Sep 2025
- 2025GIR-Bench: Versatile Benchmark for Generating Images with Reasoningcited by 15
- 2026ThinkRL-Edit: Thinking in Reinforcement Learning for Reasoning-Centric Image Editingcited by 10
- 2026LaViDa-R1: Advancing Reasoning for Unified Multimodal Diffusion Language Modelscited by 6
- 2026SpatialReward: Bridging the Perception Gap in Online RL for Image Editing via Explicit Spatial Reasoningcited by 5
- 2026PlanViz: Evaluating Planning-Oriented Image Generation and Editing for Computer-Use Taskscited by 3
- 2026Joint Reward Modeling: Internalizing Chain-of-Thought for Efficient Visual Reward Modelscited by 3
- 2026Advances in GRPO for Generation Models: A Surveycited by 1
- 2026Advances in GRPO for Generation Models: A Survey21 Feb 2026
- 2026LaViDa-R1: Advancing Reasoning for Unified Multimodal Diffusion Language Models15 Feb 2026
- 2026Joint Reward Modeling: Internalizing Chain-of-Thought for Efficient Visual Reward Models7 Feb 2026
- 2026SpatialReward: Bridging the Perception Gap in Online RL for Image Editing via Explicit Spatial Reasoning7 Feb 2026
- 2026PlanViz: Evaluating Planning-Oriented Image Generation and Editing for Computer-Use Tasks6 Feb 2026
- 2026ThinkRL-Edit: Thinking in Reinforcement Learning for Reasoning-Centric Image Editing6 Jan 2026
- 2025GIR-Bench: Versatile Benchmark for Generating Images with Reasoning13 Oct 2025
- 2026SenseNova-U1: Unifying Multimodal Understanding and Generation with NEO-unify Architecturecited by 27
- 2025UniGen-1.5: Enhancing Image Generation and Editing through Reward Unification in Reinforcement Learningcited by 8
- 2026CyCLeGen: Cycle-Consistent Layout Prediction and Image Generation in Vision Foundation Modelscited by 3
- 2026Images in Sentences: Scaling Interleaved Instructions for Unified Visual Generationcited by 2
- 2026Seeing or Knowing? Visual Context Sensitivity in Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026Seeing or Knowing? Visual Context Sensitivity in Multimodal Large Language Models28 Jul 2026
- 2026SenseNova-U1: Unifying Multimodal Understanding and Generation with NEO-unify Architecture12 May 2026
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- 2026CyCLeGen: Cycle-Consistent Layout Prediction and Image Generation in Vision Foundation Models16 Mar 2026
- 2025UniGen-1.5: Enhancing Image Generation and Editing through Reward Unification in Reinforcement Learning18 Nov 2025
- 2025Uniworld-V2: Reinforce Image Editing with Diffusion Negative-aware Finetuning and MLLM Implicit Feedbackcited by 78
- 2025EditScore: Unlocking Online RL for Image Editing via High-Fidelity Reward Modelingcited by 61
- 2026Understanding Reward Hacking in Text-to-Image Reinforcement Learningcited by 9
- 2026Leveraging Verifier-Based Reinforcement Learning in Image Editingcited by 8
- 2026Leveraging Verifier-Based Reinforcement Learning in Image Editing30 Apr 2026
- 2026Understanding Reward Hacking in Text-to-Image Reinforcement Learning6 Jan 2026
- 2025Uniworld-V2: Reinforce Image Editing with Diffusion Negative-aware Finetuning and MLLM Implicit Feedback19 Oct 2025
- 2025EditScore: Unlocking Online RL for Image Editing via High-Fidelity Reward Modeling28 Sep 2025
- 2026UniGRPO: Unified Policy Optimization for Reasoning-Driven Visual Generationcited by 11
- 2026Beyond VLM-Based Rewards: Diffusion-Native Latent Reward Modelingcited by 5
- 2026FineEdit: Fine-Grained Image Edit with Bounding Box Guidancecited by 1
- 2026Representation Learning in Diffusion and Flow-based Model: An Application Aspectcited by 0
- 2026Representation Learning in Diffusion and Flow-based Model: An Application Aspect25 Aug 2026
- 2026FineEdit: Fine-Grained Image Edit with Bounding Box Guidance13 Apr 2026
- 2026UniGRPO: Unified Policy Optimization for Reasoning-Driven Visual Generation24 Mar 2026
- 2026Beyond VLM-Based Rewards: Diffusion-Native Latent Reward Modeling11 Feb 2026
- 2025Reconstruction Alignment Improves Unified Multimodal Modelscited by 48
- 2025Uni-MMMU: A Massive Multi-discipline Multimodal Unified Benchmarkcited by 28
- 2026Generation Enhances Understanding in Unified Multimodal Models via Multi-Representation Generationcited by 19
- 2026Tuna-2: Pixel Embeddings Beat Vision Encoders for Multimodal Understanding and Generationcited by 17
- 2026DeepGen 1.0: A Lightweight Unified Multimodal Model for Advancing Image Generation and Editingcited by 14
- 2026Quantifying the Gap between Understanding and Generation within Unified Multimodal Modelscited by 11
- 2025LightFusion: A Light-weighted, Double Fusion Framework for Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generationcited by 9
- 2025VQRAE: Representation Quantization Autoencoders for Multimodal Understanding, Generation and Reconstructioncited by 9
- 2025I2I-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Image-to-Image Editing Modelscited by 7
- 2026Skywork UniPic 3.0: Unified Multi-Image Composition via Sequence Modelingcited by 7
- 2026CoCoEdit: Content-Consistent Image Editing via Region Regularized Reinforcement Learningcited by 3
- 2026Wan-Weaver: Interleaved Multi-modal Generation via Decoupled Trainingcited by 3
12 most cited of 16 All 16 (JSON)
- 2026Reasoning-Informed Visual Editing8 Oct 2026
- 2026Tuna-2: Pixel Embeddings Beat Vision Encoders for Multimodal Understanding and Generation27 Apr 2026
- 2026Wan-Weaver: Interleaved Multi-modal Generation via Decoupled Training26 Mar 2026
- 2026FUMO: Prior-Modulated Diffusion for Single Image Reflection Removal19 Mar 2026
- 2026UniRef-Image-Edit: Towards Scalable and Consistent Multi-Reference Image Editing15 Feb 2026
- 2026CoCoEdit: Content-Consistent Image Editing via Region Regularized Reinforcement Learning15 Feb 2026
- 2026DeepGen 1.0: A Lightweight Unified Multimodal Model for Advancing Image Generation and Editing12 Feb 2026
- 2026Quantifying the Gap between Understanding and Generation within Unified Multimodal Models2 Feb 2026
- 2026Generation Enhances Understanding in Unified Multimodal Models via Multi-Representation Generation29 Jan 2026
- 2026Skywork UniPic 3.0: Unified Multi-Image Composition via Sequence Modeling22 Jan 2026
- 2025UmniBench: Unified Understand and Generation Model Oriented Omni-dimensional Benchmark19 Dec 2025
- 2025I2I-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Image-to-Image Editing Models4 Dec 2025
12 newest of 16 All 16 (JSON)