Self-Refining Video Sampling
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Abstract (arXiv)
Modern video generators still struggle with complex physical dynamics, often falling short of physical realism. Existing approaches address this using external verifiers or additional training on augmented data, which is computationally expensive and still limited in capturing fine-grained motion. In this work, we present self-refining video sampling, a simple method that uses a pre-trained video generator trained on large-scale datasets as its own self-refiner. By interpreting the generator as a denoising autoencoder, we enable iterative inner-loop refinement at inference time without any external verifier or additional training. We further introduce an uncertainty-aware refinement strategy that selectively refines regions based on self-consistency, which prevents artifacts caused by over-refinement. Experiments on state-of-the-art video generators demonstrate significant improvements in motion coherence and physics alignment, achieving over 70% human preference compared to the default sampler and guidance-based sampler.
Key facts. Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 58 of its 117 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 26 Jan 2026.
Builds on
58 of 117 references.
References · 58
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
- 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 8,964
- 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,717
- 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,426
- 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,418
- 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,067
- 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedbackcited by 3,317
- 2025Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Modelscited by 2,536
- 2024CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformercited by 2,198
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- 2023VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Modelscited by 1,755
- 2024HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Modelscited by 1,597
38 more
- 2016Training Deep Nets with Sublinear Memory Costcited by 825
- 2024LTX-Video: Realtime Video Latent Diffusioncited by 549
- 2023UniPC: A Unified Predictor-Corrector Framework for Fast Sampling of Diffusion Modelscited by 441
- 2024Pyramidal Flow Matching for Efficient Video Generative Modelingcited by 354
- 2025Improving Video Generation with Human Feedbackcited by 267
- 2024MegaSaM: Accurate, Fast, and Robust Structure and Motion from Casual Dynamic Videoscited by 224
- 2024Motion-I2V: Consistent and Controllable Image-to-Video Generation with Explicit Motion Modelingcited by 209
- 2025Video models are zero-shot learners and reasonerscited by 208
- 2024How Far is Video Generation from World Model: A Physical Law Perspectivecited by 204
- 2025World Simulation with Video Foundation Models for Physical AIcited by 183
- 2024PhysGen: Rigid-Body Physics-Grounded Image-to-Video Generationcited by 169
- 2025Cosmos-Reason1: From Physical Common Sense To Embodied Reasoningcited by 159
- 2024Gen2Act: Human Video Generation in Novel Scenarios enables Generalizable Robot Manipulationcited by 142
- 2025VideoPhy-2: A Challenging Action-Centric Physical Commonsense Evaluation in Video Generationcited by 141
- 2013Generalized Denoising Auto-Encoders as Generative Modelscited by 113
- 2025VideoJAM: Joint Appearance-Motion Representations for Enhanced Motion Generation in Video Modelscited by 112
- 2024Eliminating Oversaturation and Artifacts of High Guidance Scales in Diffusion Modelscited by 107
- 2023FreeInit: Bridging Initialization Gap in Video Diffusion Modelscited by 93
- 2025WISA: World Simulator Assistant for Physics-Aware Text-to-Video Generationcited by 87
- 2025Reasoning with Sampling: Your Base Model is Smarter Than You Thinkcited by 84
- 2023Restart Sampling for Improving Generative Processescited by 81
- 2025Large Video Planner Enables Generalizable Robot Controlcited by 67
- 2023GPT4Motion: Scripting Physical Motions in Text-to-Video Generation via Blender-Oriented GPT Planningcited by 61
- 2025Force Prompting: Video Generation Models Can Learn and Generalize Physics-based Control Signalscited by 51
- 2025PISA Experiments: Exploring Physics Post-Training for Video Diffusion Models by Watching Stuff Dropcited by 49
- 2025VLIPP: Towards Physically Plausible Video Generation with Vision and Language Informed Physical Priorcited by 49
- 2025CFG-Zero*: Improved Classifier-Free Guidance for Flow Matching Modelscited by 47
- 2024MotionCraft: Physics-based Zero-Shot Video Generationcited by 46
- 2025Video-T1: Test-Time Scaling for Video Generationcited by 39
- 2025PhysCtrl: Generative Physics for Controllable and Physics-Grounded Video Generationcited by 39
- 2024Zigzag Diffusion Sampling: Diffusion Models Can Self-Improve via Self-Reflectioncited by 38
- 2025"PhyWorldBench": A Comprehensive Evaluation of Physical Realism in Text-to-Video Modelscited by 34
- 2024Identity Decoupling for Multi-Subject Personalization of Text-to-Image Modelscited by 33
- 2023BayesDiff: Estimating Pixel-wise Uncertainty in Diffusion via Bayesian Inferencecited by 30
- 2025PAI-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark For Physical AIcited by 30
- 2025Inference-Time Enhancement of Generative Robot Policies via Predictive World Modelingcited by 22
- 2025PhyGDPO: Physics-Aware Groupwise Direct Preference Optimization for Physically Consistent Text-to-Video Generationcited by 22
- 2025FlowMo: Variance-Based Flow Guidance for Coherent Motion in Video Generationcited by 21
50 most cited of 58 All 58 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 14.
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- 2026Proprio: Latent Self-Scoring and Inference-Time Refinement for Physically Plausible Video Generationcited by 6
- 2026Human Cognition in Machines: A Unified Perspective of World Modelscited by 5
- 2026CollabVR: Collaborative Video Reasoning with Vision-Language and Video Generation Modelscited by 4
- 2026VLMs are Good Teachers for Video Reasoning via Adaptive Test-Time Optimizationcited by 4
- 2026Off-Manifold Refinement: Guiding Video Generators with a Frozen World Modelcited by 2
- 2026On the Robustness of Distribution Support under Diffusion Guidancecited by 1
- 2026Steering Video Diffusion Transformers with Massive Activationscited by 0
- 2026h-control: Training-Free Camera Control via Block-Conditional Gibbs Refinementcited by 0
- 2026SpecLoR: Spectral Lookahead Rectification for Motion-Coherent Text-to-Video Generationcited by 0
- 2026Test-Time Noise Guided Adaptation for Realistic Autoregressive Video Generationcited by 0
- 2026Reflection-aware Generative Novel View Synthesiscited by 0
- 2026Sampling headroom is not selection gain: a compute-value audit of test-time scaling for video world modelscited by 0
- 2026HiPhy: Hierarchical Alignment for Physically-Plausible Multi-Principle Video Generation1 Oct 2026
- 2026Learning via Self-Consistency for Diffusion-based Video Reasoning29 Sep 2026
- 2026Sampling headroom is not selection gain: a compute-value audit of test-time scaling for video world models6 Sep 2026
- 2026Reflection-aware Generative Novel View Synthesis4 Sep 2026
- 2026Off-Manifold Refinement: Guiding Video Generators with a Frozen World Model30 Aug 2026
- 2026Test-Time Noise Guided Adaptation for Realistic Autoregressive Video Generation17 Jul 2026
- 2026SpecLoR: Spectral Lookahead Rectification for Motion-Coherent Text-to-Video Generation10 Jun 2026
- 2026VLMs are Good Teachers for Video Reasoning via Adaptive Test-Time Optimization1 Jun 2026
- 2026Proprio: Latent Self-Scoring and Inference-Time Refinement for Physically Plausible Video Generation27 May 2026
- 2026h-control: Training-Free Camera Control via Block-Conditional Gibbs Refinement12 May 2026
- 2026CollabVR: Collaborative Video Reasoning with Vision-Language and Video Generation Models9 May 2026
- 2026On the Robustness of Distribution Support under Diffusion Guidance8 May 2026
2 more
- 2026On the Robustness of Distribution Support under Diffusion Guidancecited by 1
- 2026Steering Video Diffusion Transformers with Massive Activationscited by 0
- 2026h-control: Training-Free Camera Control via Block-Conditional Gibbs Refinementcited by 0
- 2026SpecLoR: Spectral Lookahead Rectification for Motion-Coherent Text-to-Video Generationcited by 0
- 2026Test-Time Noise Guided Adaptation for Realistic Autoregressive Video Generationcited by 0
- 2026Reflection-aware Generative Novel View Synthesiscited by 0
- 2026Reflection-aware Generative Novel View Synthesis4 Sep 2026
- 2026Test-Time Noise Guided Adaptation for Realistic Autoregressive Video Generation17 Jul 2026
- 2026SpecLoR: Spectral Lookahead Rectification for Motion-Coherent Text-to-Video Generation10 Jun 2026
- 2026h-control: Training-Free Camera Control via Block-Conditional Gibbs Refinement12 May 2026
- 2026On the Robustness of Distribution Support under Diffusion Guidance8 May 2026
- 2026Steering Video Diffusion Transformers with Massive Activations18 Mar 2026
Similar, not cited
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- 2026LaMo: Self-Supervised Latent Motion Priors for Physical Realism in Video Generation
- 2026SIFT: Self-Imagination Fine-Tuning for Physically Plausible Motion in Video Diffusion Models
- 2025Bootstrapping Physics-Grounded Video Generation through VLM-Guided Iterative Self-Refinement
- 2025When Distillation Breaks Motion Control: Restoring Generative Trajectories for Fast Video Generators
- 2026Does Physics Live in the Activations? Localizing Physical Quantities in Video Diffusion Models
- 2026OPSD-V: On-Policy Self-Distillation for Post-Training Few-Step Autoregressive Video Generators
- 2026Equilibrium Forcing: Adaptive Video Generation Without Noise Conditioning
- 2026Not All Frames Deserve Full Computation: Accelerating Autoregressive Video Generation via Selective Computation and Predictive Extrapolation