mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

LightCtrl: Training-free Controllable Video Relighting

arXiv 2603.27083 ↗First posted 28 Mar 2026cs.CVcited by 3

On the map: Diffusion models → 3D, point cloud and scene generation

Abstract (arXiv)

Recent diffusion models have achieved remarkable success in image relighting, and this success has quickly been extended to video relighting. However, existing methods offer limited explicit control over illumination in the relighted output. We present LightCtrl, the first controllable video relighting method that enables explicit control of video illumination through a user-supplied light trajectory in a training-free manner. Our approach combines pre-trained diffusion models: an image relighting model processes each frame individually, followed by a video diffusion prior to enhance temporal consistency. To achieve explicit control over dynamically varying lighting, we introduce two key components. First, a Light Map Injection module samples light trajectory-specific noise and injects it into the latent representation of the source video, improving illumination coherence with the conditional light trajectory. Second, a Geometry-Aware Relighting module dynamically combines RGB and normal map latents in the frequency domain to suppress the influence of the original lighting, further enhancing adherence to the input light trajectory. Experiments show that LightCtrl produces high-quality videos with diverse illumination changes that closely follow the specified light trajectory, demonstrating improved controllability over baseline methods. Code is available at: https://github.com/GVCLab/LightCtrl.

Key facts. Cited by 3 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 44 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 Mar 2026.

Builds on

44 of 48 references.

Closest ancestors · 8

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Light-A-Video: Training-free Video Relighting via Progressive Light Fusion12 Feb
  2. 2025RelightVid: Temporal-Consistent Diffusion Model for Video Relighting27 Jan
  3. 2024GenLit: Reformulating Single-Image Relighting as Video Generation15 Dec
  4. 2024DifFRelight: Diffusion-Based Facial Performance Relighting10 Oct
  5. 2024StableNormal: Reducing Diffusion Variance for Stable and Sharp Normal24 Jun
  6. 2024DiLightNet: Fine-grained Lighting Control for Diffusion-based Image Generation19 Feb
  7. 2023Relightful Harmonization: Lighting-aware Portrait Background Replacement11 Dec
  8. 2021Neural Video Portrait Relighting in Real-time via Consistency Modeling1 Apr

Other references · 36

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  2. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
  3. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 5,503
  4. 2023Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasetscited by 2,581
  5. 2024CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformercited by 2,261
  6. 2021SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 1,937
  7. 2023VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Modelscited by 1,822
  8. 2023AnimateDiff: Animate Your Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models without Specific Tuningcited by 1,433
  9. 2018Towards Accurate Generative Models of Video: A New Metric & Challengescited by 1,234
  10. 2022Tune-A-Video: One-Shot Tuning of Image Diffusion Models for Text-to-Video Generationcited by 961
  11. 2023ModelScope Text-to-Video Technical Reportcited by 658
  12. 2023MotionCtrl: A Unified and Flexible Motion Controller for Video Generationcited by 580
24 more
  1. 2024VideoCrafter2: Overcoming Data Limitations for High-Quality Video Diffusion Modelscited by 579
  2. 2023VideoCrafter1: Open Diffusion Models for High-Quality Video Generationcited by 535
  3. 2023DynamiCrafter: Animating Open-domain Images with Video Diffusion Priorscited by 471
  4. 2023VideoComposer: Compositional Video Synthesis with Motion Controllabilitycited by 464
  5. 2023Uni-ControlNet: All-in-One Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 359
  6. 2023Rerender A Video: Zero-Shot Text-Guided Video-to-Video Translationcited by 253
  7. 2023FLATTEN: optical FLow-guided ATTENtion for consistent text-to-video editingcited by 167
  8. 2024AnyV2V: A Tuning-Free Framework For Any Video-to-Video Editing Taskscited by 154
  9. 2019Single Image Portrait Relightingcited by 152
  10. 2023Zero-Shot Video Editing Using Off-The-Shelf Image Diffusion Modelscited by 137
  11. 2024Boximator: Generating Rich and Controllable Motions for Video Synthesiscited by 107
  12. 2024MotionClone: Training-Free Motion Cloning for Controllable Video Generationcited by 105
  13. 2023FreeInit: Bridging Initialization Gap in Video Diffusion Modelscited by 95
  14. 2023TrailBlazer: Trajectory Control for Diffusion-Based Video Generationcited by 91
  15. 2019Learning Physics-guided Face Relighting under Directional Lightcited by 90
  16. 2023Consistent Video-to-Video Transfer Using Synthetic Datasetcited by 81
  17. 2023PEEKABOO: Interactive Video Generation via Masked-Diffusioncited by 76
  18. 2024ReVideo: Remake a Video with Motion and Content Controlcited by 74
  19. 2022Learning to Relight Portrait Images via a Virtual Light Stage and Synthetic-to-Real Adaptationcited by 67
  20. 2024SwitchLight: Co-design of Physics-driven Architecture and Pre-training Framework for Human Portrait Relightingcited by 67
  21. 2024Follow-Your-Click: Open-domain Regional Image Animation via Short Promptscited by 52
  22. 2024Motion Guidance: Diffusion-Based Image Editing with Differentiable Motion Estimatorscited by 39
  23. 2024Real-time 3D-aware Portrait Video Relightingcited by 21
  24. 2023ReliTalk: Relightable Talking Portrait Generation from a Single Videocited by 12

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.

3 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025ReLumix: Extending Image Relighting to Video via Video Diffusion Models
  2. 2025LightLab: Controlling Light Sources in Images with Diffusion Models
  3. 2025RelightMaster: Precise Video Relighting with Multi-plane Light Images
  4. 2026LightCrafter: PBR-Conditioned Video Diffusion Refinement for Controllable and Consistent Relighting
  5. 2025UniLumos: Fast and Unified Image and Video Relighting with Physics-Plausible Feedback
  6. 2026Learning Latent Proxies for Controllable Single-Image Relighting
  7. 2025UniRelight: Learning Joint Decomposition and Synthesis for Video Relighting
  8. 2025Lux Post Facto: Learning Portrait Performance Relighting with Conditional Video Diffusion and a Hybrid Dataset