# Evolution of Video Generative Foundations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.06339 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.06339/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Video-generation world models and simulators, one of 11 directions in World models.
- Builds on 272 of its 286 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Apr 2026.

## Placed in

- World models / [Video-generation world models and simulators](https://mlsanity.com/wm/video-generation-world-models-and-simulators/)
- Diffusion models / [Video generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/video-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 272)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [Neural Discrete Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00937/) (2017)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09841/) (2020)
- [Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00364/) (2022)
- [Progressive Growing of GANs for Improved Quality, Stability, and Variation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10196/) (2017)
- [Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20314/) (2025)
- [InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09800/) (2022)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [An Image is Worth One Word: Personalizing Text-to-Image Generation using Textual Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01618/) (2022)
- [VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17982/) (2023)
- [Imagen Video: High Definition Video Generation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02303/) (2022)
- [Make-A-Video: Text-to-Video Generation without Text-Video Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14792/) (2022)
- [HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03603/) (2024)
- [Align your Latents: High-Resolution Video Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08818/) (2023)
- [AnimateDiff: Animate Your Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models without Specific Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04725/) (2023)
- [MaskGIT: Masked Generative Image Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.04200/) (2022)
- [CogVideo: Large-scale Pretraining for Text-to-Video Generation via Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15868/) (2022)
- [Emerging Properties in Unified Multimodal Pretraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.14683/) (2025)
- [Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.03575/) (2025)
- [RWKV: Reinventing RNNs for the Transformer Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13048/) (2023)
- [Pixel Recurrent Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1601.06759/) (2016)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [MetaWorld: Scaling Multi-Agent Video World Model from Single-view Video Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.02753/) (2026)
- [Toward Native Multimodal Modeling: A Roadmap](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.25343/) (2026)
- [CineDance: Towards Next-Generation Multi-Shot Long-Form Cinematic Audio-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.09639/) (2026)
- [PhysWeep: Does a Video Generator Realize the Physics You Ask For?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.06207/) (2026)
- [Efficient Audio-Visual Generation via Synchrony-Aware Cross-Modal Sparse Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.15522/) (2026)
- [Towards Trustworthy Physical Intelligence: From Theory to Practice Across Life Cycle](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.22877/) (2026)
- [DiVid: Diagnosing Dimension-Specific Diversity Collapse in Video Generation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.01661/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) has revolutionized video generation, enabling systems ranging from proprietary pioneers like OpenAI's Sora, Google's Veo3, and Bytedance's Seedance to powerful open-source contenders like Wan and HunyuanVideo to synthesize temporally coherent and semantically rich videos. These advancements pave the way for building "world models" that simulate real-world dynamics, with applications spanning entertainment, education, and virtual reality. However, existing reviews on video generation often focus on narrow technical fields, e.g., Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) and diffusion models, or specific tasks (e. g., video editing), lacking a comprehensive perspective on the field's evolution, especially regarding Auto-Regressive (AR) models and integration of multimodal information. To address these gaps, this survey firstly provides a systematic review of the development of video generation technology, tracing its evolution from early GANs to dominant diffusion models, and further to emerging AR-based and multimodal techniques. We conduct an in-depth analysis of the foundational principles, key advancements, and comparative strengths/limitations. Then, we explore emerging trends in multimodal video generation, emphasizing the integration of diverse data types to enhance contextual awareness. Finally, by bridging historical developments and contemporary innovations, this survey offers insights to guide future research in video generation and its applications, including virtual/augmented reality, personalized education, autonomous driving simulations, digital entertainment, and advanced world models, in this rapidly evolving field. For more details, please refer to the project at https://github.com/sjtuplayer/Awesome-Video-Foundations.