# WorldDirector: Building Controllable World Simulators with Persistent Dynamic Memory

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.02517 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.02517/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 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 50 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Jul 2026.

## Placed in

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

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 50)

- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Flow Matching for Generative Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02747/) (2022)
- [Qwen2.5-VL Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13923/) (2025)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20314/) (2025)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17982/) (2023)
- [Depth Anything V2](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09414/) (2024)
- [T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.08453/) (2023)
- [SAM 3: Segment Anything with Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16719/) (2025)
- [WorldSimBench: Towards Video Generation Models as World Simulators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18072/) (2024)
- [GLIGEN: Open-Set Grounded Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.07093/) (2023)
- [Genie: Generative Interactive Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.15391/) (2024)
- [MotionCtrl: A Unified and Flexible Motion Controller for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03641/) (2023)
- [Revisiting Feature Prediction for Learning Visual Representations from Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.08471/) (2024)
- [VideoPoet: A Large Language Model for Zero-Shot Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14125/) (2023)
- [CLEVRER: CoLlision Events for Video REpresentation and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.01442/) (2019)
- [VACE: All-in-One Video Creation and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07598/) (2025)
- [CameraCtrl: Enabling Camera Control for Text-to-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02101/) (2024)
- [Lumiere: A Space-Time Diffusion Model for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.12945/) (2024)
- [ControlVideo: Training-free Controllable Text-to-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13077/) (2023)
- [Diffusion for World Modeling: Visual Details Matter in Atari](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12399/) (2024)
- [DragNUWA: Fine-grained Control in Video Generation by Integrating Text, Image, and Trajectory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.08089/) (2023)
- [StreamingT2V: Consistent, Dynamic, and Extendable Long Video Generation from Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14773/) (2024)
- [SEINE: Short-to-Long Video Diffusion Model for Generative Transition and Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.20700/) (2023)
- [Matrix-game 2.0: An open-source real-time and streaming interactive world model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.13009/) (2025)
- [FreeNoise: Tuning-Free Longer Video Diffusion via Noise Rescheduling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15169/) (2023)
- [Motion Prompting: Controlling Video Generation with Motion Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02700/) (2024)
- [WorldPlay: Towards Long-Term Geometric Consistency for Real-Time Interactive World Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.14614/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Infinite Worlds with Versatile Interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.07534/) (2026)
- [Code World Model: Coding Agent as World Brain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.25927/) (2026)
- [Matrix-Game 3.5: Enhancing Real-Time Streaming Interactive World Models with Patch Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.29910/) (2026)
- [World Observer: Joint Actor-Observer Generation for Persistent World Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.02162/) (2026)
- [StateCraft: Augmenting Video World Models with Abstract-State Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19795/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present WorldDirector, a highly controllable video world model framework designed for persistent dynamic object memory and unrestricted viewpoint exploration. Unlike existing world models that entangle physical dynamics with pixel rendering and rely on continuous visual observation to sustain motion, our framework explicitly decouples semantic motion orchestration from visual generation. By leveraging an LLM to coordinate 3D trajectories with camera movements and subsequently employing these orchestrated trajectories as control signals for video generation, our approach ensures strict physical logic and appearance stability, successfully preserving the exact visual identities of dynamic entities even when they re-enter the scene after prolonged periods out of view. Experimental results demonstrate that our method supports the synthesis of complex and extended events with unprecedented controllability and persistent dynamic object memory. Project Page: https://worlddirector.github.io/