mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

VChain: Chain-of-Visual-Thought for Reasoning in Video Generation

arXiv 2510.05094 ↗First posted 6 Oct 2025cs.CVcited by 32

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Abstract (arXiv)

Recent video generation models can produce smooth and visually appealing clips, but they often struggle to synthesize complex dynamics with a coherent chain of consequences. Accurately modeling visual outcomes and state transitions over time remains a core challenge. In contrast, large language and multimodal models (e.g., GPT-4o) exhibit strong visual state reasoning and future prediction capabilities. To bridge these strengths, we introduce VChain, a novel inference-time chain-of-visual-thought framework that injects visual reasoning signals from multimodal models into video generation. Specifically, VChain contains a dedicated pipeline that leverages large multimodal models to generate a sparse set of critical keyframes as snapshots, which are then used to guide the sparse inference-time visual-state adaptation of a pre-trained video generator only at these key moments. Our approach is tuning-efficient, introduces minimal overhead and avoids dense supervision. Extensive experiments on complex, multi-step scenarios show that VChain significantly enhances the quality of generated videos.

Key facts. Cited by 32 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 26 of its 52 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 6 Oct 2025.

Builds on

26 of 52 references.

References · 26

  1. 2020An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scalecited by 30,186
  2. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,713
  3. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 9,122
  4. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,058
  5. 2017Neural Discrete Representation Learningcited by 4,712
  6. 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,356
  7. 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,181
  8. 2020Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 3,253
  9. 2025Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Modelscited by 2,708
  10. 2023Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasetscited by 2,581
  11. 2024CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformercited by 2,261
  12. 2023VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Modelscited by 1,822
14 more
  1. 2022Imagen Video: High Definition Video Generation with Diffusion Modelscited by 1,778
  2. 2023T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1,351
  3. 2025Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AIcited by 864
  4. 2021CogView: Mastering Text-to-Image Generation via Transformerscited by 694
  5. 2025VBench-2.0: Advancing Video Generation Benchmark Suite for Intrinsic Faithfulnesscited by 315
  6. 2022CogView2: Faster and Better Text-to-Image Generation via Hierarchical Transformerscited by 307
  7. 2023Show-1: Marrying Pixel and Latent Diffusion Models for Text-to-Video Generationcited by 302
  8. 2025SWE-RL: Advancing LLM Reasoning via Reinforcement Learning on Open Software Evolutioncited by 263
  9. 2025Video models are zero-shot learners and reasonerscited by 220
  10. 2025SafeChain: Safety of Language Models with Long Chain-of-Thought Reasoning Capabilitiescited by 136
  11. 2023Collaborative Diffusion for Multi-Modal Face Generation and Editingcited by 116
  12. 2025Safety is Not Only About Refusal: Reasoning-Enhanced Fine-tuning for Interpretable LLM Safetycited by 39
  13. 2022MERIt: Meta-Path Guided Contrastive Learning for Logical Reasoningcited by 22
  14. 2025MAViS: A Multi-Agent Framework for Long-Sequence Video Storytellingcited by 21

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 8; 2026: 24.

32 papers.

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  1. 2025Chain-of-Visual-Thought: Teaching VLMs to See and Think Better with Continuous Visual Tokenscited by 71
  2. 2025WorldLens: Full-Spectrum Evaluations of Driving World Models in Real Worldcited by 23
  3. 2025V-ReasonBench: Toward Unified Reasoning Benchmark Suite for Video Generation Modelscited by 22
  4. 2025Simulating the Visual World with Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmapcited by 15
  5. 2026Demystifying Video Reasoningcited by 14
  6. 2026Agentic World Modeling: Foundations, Capabilities, Laws, and Beyondcited by 14
  7. 2025RULER-Bench: Probing Rule-based Reasoning Abilities of Next-level Video Generation Models for Vision Foundation Intelligencecited by 13
  8. 2026Phantom: Physics-Infused Video Generation via Joint Modeling of Visual and Latent Physical Dynamicscited by 12
  9. 2026Olaf-World: Orienting Latent Actions for Video World Modelingcited by 10
  10. 2026Video Models Can Reason with Verifiable Rewardscited by 9
  11. 2026UniT: Unified Multimodal Chain-of-Thought Test-time Scalingcited by 8
  12. 2026PhyRPR: Training-Free Physics-Constrained Video Generationcited by 7
20 more
  1. 2025Planning with Sketch-Guided Verification for Physics-Aware Video Generationcited by 6
  2. 2026VBVR-Pro: A Scalable and Verifiable Suite for Native Visual Reasoningcited by 6
  3. 2026VLMs are Good Teachers for Video Reasoning via Adaptive Test-Time Optimizationcited by 5
  4. 2025Exploring MLLM-Diffusion Information Transfer with MetaCanvascited by 4
  5. 2026CollabVR: Collaborative Video Reasoning with Vision-Language and Video Generation Modelscited by 4
  6. 2026AudioRouter: Data Efficient Audio Understanding via RL based Dual Reasoningcited by 3
  7. 2026MMPhysVideo: Physically Plausible Video Generation Through Joint RGB-Perception Modelingcited by 3
  8. 2026DiffHDR: Re-Exposing LDR Videos with Video Diffusion Modelscited by 3
  9. 2025Envision: Benchmarking Unified Understanding & Generation for Causal World Process Insightscited by 2
  10. 2026Verifiable Reasoning for LLM-based Generative Recommendationcited by 2
  11. 2026Open Evaluation Agent: Efficient and Promptable Evaluation of Visual Generative Modelscited by 2
  12. 2026MotiMotion: Motion-Controlled Video Generation with Visual Reasoningcited by 1
  13. 2026Apple-π: Benchmarking Thinking with Video Towards Law-Grounded Physical Intelligencecited by 1
  14. 2026LogiShot: Logically Coherent Cross-Shot Video Generationcited by 1
  15. 2026Physics-Aware Video Generation via Agentic Planning and Graph-Guided Optimizationcited by 1
  16. 2026Compositional Video Generation via Inference-Time Guidancecited by 0
  17. 2026V-Rubrics: Visual Faithfulness via Rubric-Based Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
  18. 2026Physically Plausible Video Generation via Visual-Semantic Chain-of-Events Conditioningcited by 0
  19. 2026ThinkV2V: Unleashing the Reasoning Capability of MLLMs for Instruction-Guided Video Editingcited by 0
  20. 2026ProAR: Learning Prospective Reasoning with Autoregressive Video Modelscited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026From Evaluation to Enhancement: Benchmarking and Improving Think-with-Video Reasoning for Video Generative Models
  2. 2025Video Finetuning Improves Reasoning Between Frames
  3. 2026VGI-Bench: Probing Visual Intelligence in Video Generation Models
  4. 2025TiViBench: Benchmarking Think-in-Video Reasoning for Video Generative Models
  5. 2026TwiFF (Think With Future Frames): A Large-Scale Dataset for Dynamic Visual Reasoning
  6. 2026Beyond Visual CoT: Internalized Visual Thinking for Proactive Video Reasoning
  7. 2026DeltaV: Thinking with Visual State Updates in Unified Large Multimodal Models
  8. 2025VCR-Bench: A Comprehensive Evaluation Framework for Video Chain-of-Thought Reasoning