mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

OptiWorld: Optimal Control for Video World Generation under Physical Constraints

arXiv 2606.00499 ↗First posted 30 May 2026cs.CVcited by 2

On the map: World models → Video-generation world models and simulators

Abstract (arXiv)

Video generation models are becoming a scalable form of world models, but they mainly generate plausible motion rather than proactively control or optimize the underlying dynamics. As a result, an object in the generated video may follow trajectories that are unsafe, not smooth, inefficient, or physically inconsistent. In this work, we propose OptiWorld, a framework that brings classical optimal control into video generation at inference time. OptiWorld first extracts a compact, task-relevant world state, then plans an optimal trajectory under physical constraints, and finally renders the video conditioned on this trajectory. We formulate planning as a geometric problem on a continuous manifold, which converts 3D geometry and task-dependent physical constraints into a unified planning geometry. By adding this optimal-control layer, OptiWorld generates videos with preferable dynamics, demonstrating strong potential in multiple tasks including goal-conditioned image-to-video generation, video dynamics editing, and counterfactual generation.

Key facts. Cited by 2 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 44 of its 91 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 30 May 2026.

Builds on

44 of 91 references.

Closest ancestors · 4

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026Matrix-Game 3.0: Real-Time and Streaming Interactive World Model with Long-Horizon Memory10 Apr
  2. 2026Solaris: Building a Multiplayer Video World Model in Minecraft25 Feb
  3. 2025Hunyuan-GameCraft-2: Instruction-following Interactive Game World Model28 Nov
  4. 2025Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models26 Mar

Other references · 40

  1. 2020Scaling Laws for Neural Language Modelscited by 6,586
  2. 2024HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Modelscited by 1,660
  3. 2018World Modelscited by 1,513
  4. 2025SAM 3: Segment Anything with Conceptscited by 906
  5. 2025Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AIcited by 864
  6. 2024DROID: A Large-Scale In-The-Wild Robot Manipulation Datasetcited by 852
  7. 2026World Action Models are Zero-shot Policiescited by 465
  8. 2024CameraCtrl: Enabling Camera Control for Text-to-Video Generationcited by 460
  9. 2025MoGe-2: Accurate Monocular Geometry with Metric Scale and Sharp Detailscited by 261
  10. 2025Video models are zero-shot learners and reasonerscited by 220
  11. 2025World Simulation with Video Foundation Models for Physical AIcited by 200
  12. 2025Diffusion as Shader: 3D-aware Video Diffusion for Versatile Video Generation Controlcited by 185
28 more
  1. 2024Motion Prompting: Controlling Video Generation with Motion Trajectoriescited by 178
  2. 2024CamCo: Camera-Controllable 3D-Consistent Image-to-Video Generationcited by 166
  3. 2025HunyuanVideo 1.5 Technical Reportcited by 160
  4. 2026Seedance 2.0: Advancing Video Generation for World Complexitycited by 160
  5. 2025WorldScore: A Unified Evaluation Benchmark for World Generationcited by 156
  6. 2025VideoPhy-2: A Challenging Action-Centric Physical Commonsense Evaluation in Video Generationcited by 149
  7. 2024Training-free Camera Control for Video Generationcited by 122
  8. 2025VideoJAM: Joint Appearance-Motion Representations for Enhanced Motion Generation in Video Modelscited by 113
  9. 2025HunyuanWorld 1.0: Generating Immersive, Explorable, and Interactive 3D Worlds from Words or Pixelscited by 94
  10. 2025VLIPP: Towards Physically Plausible Video Generation with Vision and Language Informed Physical Priorcited by 52
  11. 2025Evaluating Gemini Robotics Policies in a Veo World Simulatorcited by 51
  12. 2025MotionCanvas: Cinematic Shot Design with Controllable Image-to-Video Generationcited by 50
  13. 2025Evaluating Newtonian Mechanics in Video Generative Models with Real Physical Systemscited by 48
  14. 2025World-in-World: World Models in a Closed-Loop Worldcited by 47
  15. 2018Riemannian Motion Policiescited by 46
  16. 2024PhysMotion: Physics-Grounded Dynamics From a Single Imagecited by 45
  17. 2026Lyra 2.0: Explorable Generative 3D Worldscited by 44
  18. 2025ATI: Any Trajectory Instruction for Controllable Video Generationcited by 43
  19. 2025NewtonGen: Physics-Consistent and Controllable Text-to-Video Generation via Neural Newtonian Dynamicscited by 41
  20. 2024AutoVFX: Physically Realistic Video Editing from Natural Language Instructionscited by 27
  21. 2024E.T. the Exceptional Trajectories: Text-to-camera-trajectory generation with character awarenesscited by 25
  22. 2024Cavia: Camera-controllable Multi-view Video Diffusion with View-Integrated Attentioncited by 24
  23. 2024Phys4DGen: Physics-Compliant 4D Generation with Multi-Material Composition Perceptioncited by 23
  24. 2025Perception-as-Control: Fine-grained Controllable Image Animation with 3D-aware Motion Representationcited by 23
  25. 2025Generative Video Motion Editing with 3D Point Trackscited by 23
  26. 2025VLA-AN: An Efficient and Onboard Vision-Language-Action Framework for Aerial Navigation in Complex Environmentscited by 23
  27. 2025MotionV2V: Editing Motion in a Videocited by 14
  28. 2025SeeU: Seeing the Unseen World via 4D Dynamics-aware Generationcited by 5

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

2 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Grounding Generated Videos in Feasible Plans via World Models
  2. 2026Autonomous Video Generation with Counterfactual Controllability for Self-Evolving World Models
  3. 2026PhyWorld: Physics-Faithful World Model for Video Generation
  4. 2026WorldGuide: Goal-Directed Video World Model for Procedural Task Execution
  5. 2026Directing the World: Fast Autoregressive Video Generation with Compositional Human-Camera Control
  6. 2025IC-World: In-Context Generation for Shared World Modeling
  7. 2026VerseCrafter: Dynamic Realistic Video World Model with 4D Geometric Control
  8. 2026NEWTON: Agentic Planning for Physically Grounded Video Generation