mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Self-Refining Video Sampling

arXiv 2601.18577 ↗First posted 26 Jan 2026cs.CV cs.LGcited by 14

Not on the map. Why?

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

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
  2. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 8,964
  3. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,717
  4. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,426
  5. 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,418
  6. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,067
  7. 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedbackcited by 3,317
  8. 2025Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Modelscited by 2,536
  9. 2024CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformercited by 2,198
  10. 2021SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 1,903
  11. 2023VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Modelscited by 1,755
  12. 2024HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Modelscited by 1,597
38 more
  1. 2016Training Deep Nets with Sublinear Memory Costcited by 825
  2. 2024LTX-Video: Realtime Video Latent Diffusioncited by 549
  3. 2023UniPC: A Unified Predictor-Corrector Framework for Fast Sampling of Diffusion Modelscited by 441
  4. 2024Pyramidal Flow Matching for Efficient Video Generative Modelingcited by 354
  5. 2025Improving Video Generation with Human Feedbackcited by 267
  6. 2024MegaSaM: Accurate, Fast, and Robust Structure and Motion from Casual Dynamic Videoscited by 224
  7. 2024Motion-I2V: Consistent and Controllable Image-to-Video Generation with Explicit Motion Modelingcited by 209
  8. 2025Video models are zero-shot learners and reasonerscited by 208
  9. 2024How Far is Video Generation from World Model: A Physical Law Perspectivecited by 204
  10. 2025World Simulation with Video Foundation Models for Physical AIcited by 183
  11. 2024PhysGen: Rigid-Body Physics-Grounded Image-to-Video Generationcited by 169
  12. 2025Cosmos-Reason1: From Physical Common Sense To Embodied Reasoningcited by 159
  13. 2024Gen2Act: Human Video Generation in Novel Scenarios enables Generalizable Robot Manipulationcited by 142
  14. 2025VideoPhy-2: A Challenging Action-Centric Physical Commonsense Evaluation in Video Generationcited by 141
  15. 2013Generalized Denoising Auto-Encoders as Generative Modelscited by 113
  16. 2025VideoJAM: Joint Appearance-Motion Representations for Enhanced Motion Generation in Video Modelscited by 112
  17. 2024Eliminating Oversaturation and Artifacts of High Guidance Scales in Diffusion Modelscited by 107
  18. 2023FreeInit: Bridging Initialization Gap in Video Diffusion Modelscited by 93
  19. 2025WISA: World Simulator Assistant for Physics-Aware Text-to-Video Generationcited by 87
  20. 2025Reasoning with Sampling: Your Base Model is Smarter Than You Thinkcited by 84
  21. 2023Restart Sampling for Improving Generative Processescited by 81
  22. 2025Large Video Planner Enables Generalizable Robot Controlcited by 67
  23. 2023GPT4Motion: Scripting Physical Motions in Text-to-Video Generation via Blender-Oriented GPT Planningcited by 61
  24. 2025Force Prompting: Video Generation Models Can Learn and Generalize Physics-based Control Signalscited by 51
  25. 2025PISA Experiments: Exploring Physics Post-Training for Video Diffusion Models by Watching Stuff Dropcited by 49
  26. 2025VLIPP: Towards Physically Plausible Video Generation with Vision and Language Informed Physical Priorcited by 49
  27. 2025CFG-Zero*: Improved Classifier-Free Guidance for Flow Matching Modelscited by 47
  28. 2024MotionCraft: Physics-based Zero-Shot Video Generationcited by 46
  29. 2025Video-T1: Test-Time Scaling for Video Generationcited by 39
  30. 2025PhysCtrl: Generative Physics for Controllable and Physics-Grounded Video Generationcited by 39
  31. 2024Zigzag Diffusion Sampling: Diffusion Models Can Self-Improve via Self-Reflectioncited by 38
  32. 2025"PhyWorldBench": A Comprehensive Evaluation of Physical Realism in Text-to-Video Modelscited by 34
  33. 2024Identity Decoupling for Multi-Subject Personalization of Text-to-Image Modelscited by 33
  34. 2023BayesDiff: Estimating Pixel-wise Uncertainty in Diffusion via Bayesian Inferencecited by 30
  35. 2025PAI-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark For Physical AIcited by 30
  36. 2025Inference-Time Enhancement of Generative Robot Policies via Predictive World Modelingcited by 22
  37. 2025PhyGDPO: Physics-Aware Groupwise Direct Preference Optimization for Physically Consistent Text-to-Video Generationcited by 22
  38. 2025FlowMo: Variance-Based Flow Guidance for Coherent Motion in Video Generationcited by 21

50 most cited of 58 All 58 (JSON)

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 14.

14 papers.

Sort:

By area:

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026LaMo: Self-Supervised Latent Motion Priors for Physical Realism in Video Generation
  2. 2026SIFT: Self-Imagination Fine-Tuning for Physically Plausible Motion in Video Diffusion Models
  3. 2025Bootstrapping Physics-Grounded Video Generation through VLM-Guided Iterative Self-Refinement
  4. 2025When Distillation Breaks Motion Control: Restoring Generative Trajectories for Fast Video Generators
  5. 2026Does Physics Live in the Activations? Localizing Physical Quantities in Video Diffusion Models
  6. 2026OPSD-V: On-Policy Self-Distillation for Post-Training Few-Step Autoregressive Video Generators
  7. 2026Equilibrium Forcing: Adaptive Video Generation Without Noise Conditioning
  8. 2026Not All Frames Deserve Full Computation: Accelerating Autoregressive Video Generation via Selective Computation and Predictive Extrapolation