Streaming Multi-Track Timeline Control for 3D Human Motion Generation
Organizations: Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) · LIGM, École des Ponts, IP Paris, Univ Gustave Eiffel, CNRS
Abstract
Text-driven human motion generation has advanced substantially, yet most methods assume instructions are available before synthesis. Interactive applications require responding to new instructions while continuing ongoing actions, such as answering a phone while walking. Existing approaches address streaming generation or simultaneous composition without explicitly combining streaming instruction arrival with independently timed, overlapping actions. We introduce streaming multi-track timeline control and propose TimelineControl to incorporate new instructions alongside ongoing actions. Interval-aware conditioning preserves instruction timing, while causal part-structured representations and part-aware denoising coordinate concurrent actions across body regions. We also construct TimelineMotion, a dataset with overlapping instruction intervals and body-part annotations. Experiments on TimelineMotion and MTT demonstrate improved semantic alignment and temporal adherence over evaluated streaming baselines, including models retrained on the same data. Ablations and human evaluations validate our design, complemented by spatial conditioning and humanoid execution demonstrations. Our code, data and models will become publicly available.
Figures & tables
| Method | Stream | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@1 32 | R@2 32 | R@3 32 | M2T | M2M | R@3 32 | M2T | M2M | FID | FID+ | Trans | AP | AUC | |||
| TimelineMotion | STMC | ✗ | 0.329 | 0.452 | 0.525 | 0.627 | 0.630 | 0.353 | 0.538 | 0.633 | 0.055 | 0.228 | 0.92 | 0.803 | 0.732 |
| FrankenMotion | ✗ | 0.106 | 0.178 | 0.232 | 0.538 | 0.551 | 0.270 | 0.526 | 0.568 | 0.159 | 0.246 | 1.01 | 0.639 | 0.545 | |
| ActionPlan | ✓ | 0.248 | 0.344 | 0.405 | 0.585 | 0.585 | 0.303 | 0.547 | 0.589 | 0.274 | 0.330 | 2.16 | 0.733 | 0.653 | |
| ActionPlan ∗ | ✓ | 0.320 | 0.436 | 0.502 | 0.622 | 0.627 | 0.347 | 0.546 | 0.634 | 0.055 | 0.209 | 0.92 | 0.784 | 0.711 | |
| MotionStreamer ∗ | ✓ | 0.222 | 0.321 | 0.383 | 0.585 | 0.592 | 0.304 | 0.541 | 0.608 | 0.049 | 0.218 | 1.09 | 0.734 | 0.653 | |
| Method | R@1 32 | R@2 32 | R@3 32 | M2T | M2M | FID | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HumanML3D | STMC | 0.611 | 0.756 | 0.815 | 0.741 | 0.697 | 0.224 |
| FrankenMotion | 0.432 | 0.566 | 0.643 | 0.677 | 0.689 | 0.079 | |
| ActionPlan | 0.618 | 0.768 | 0.829 | 0.724 | 0.769 | 0.022 | |
| ActionPlan ∗ | 0.645 | 0.778 | 0.830 | 0.734 | 0.765 | 0.044 | |
| MotionStreamer ∗ | 0.568 | 0.706 | 0.772 | 0.726 | 0.742 | 0.047 | |
| DartControl ∗ | 0.536 | 0.699 | 0.775 | 0.711 | 0.657 | 0.345 |
| Autoencoder | Dims | Params (M) | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reconstruction | Generation | Reconstruction | Generation | Temporal adherence | |||||||||
| FID | MPJPE | FID | R@3 32 | FID | MPJPE | FID | FID+ | R@3 32 | AP | AUC | |||
| TAE ( Xiao et al., 2025 ) | 16 | 76.20 | 0.0028 | 21.9 | 0.047 | 0.833 | 0.0020 | 21.7 | 0.051 | 0.203 | 0.533 | 0.823 | 0.755 |
| TAE ( Xiao et al., 2025 ) | 48 | 79.42 | 0.0005 | 3.19 | 0.049 | 0.851 | 0.0002 | 3.77 | 0.040 | 0.197 | 0.576 | 0.827 | 0.762 |
| SALAD ( Hong et al., 2025 ) | 48 | 0.51 | 0.0034 | 24.1 | 0.030 | 0.858 | 0.0036 | 27.7 | 0.023 | 0.208 | 0.575 | 0.820 | 0.755 |
| Ours w/o sk.graph | 48 | 4.80 | 0.0012 | 7.46 | 0.038 | 0.851 | 0.0007 | 8.27 | 0.025 | 0.209 | 0.600 | 0.832 | 0.767 |
| Setup | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@3 32 | M2T | FID | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||
| R@3 32 | M2T | R@3 32 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Trans | AP | AUC | ||||
| Full model (Ours) | 0.874 | 0.769 | 0.027 | 0.603 | 0.653 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.017 | 0.192 | 1.31 | 0.832 | 0.772 |
| RoTE only | 0.830 | 0.753 | 0.044 | 0.586 | 0.649 | 0.370 | 0.552 | 0.028 | 0.197 | 1.28 | 0.820 | 0.752 |
| w/o RoTE | 0.820 | 0.748 | 0.061 | 0.572 | 0.648 | 0.372 | 0.550 | 0.037 | 0.195 | 1.09 | 0.801 | 0.734 |
| w/o part-aware bias | 0.850 | 0.764 | 0.038 | 0.591 | 0.650 | 0.357 | 0.547 | 0.025 | 0.193 | 1.20 | 0.830 | 0.769 |
Appendix figures & tables18 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| Interval shift | AP | ROC-AUC |
|---|---|---|
| - 2 s | 0.440 | 0.564 |
| - 1 s | 0.580 | 0.675 |
| - 0.5 s | 0.630 | 0.712 |
| 0 | 0.647 | 0.728 |
| + 0.5 s | 0.622 | 0.713 |
| + 1 s | 0.556 | 0.671 |
| Variant | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@3 32 | M2T | FID | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||
| R@3 32 | M2T | R@3 32 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Trans (cm) | AP | ROC-AUC | ||||
| Full model (Ours) | 0.874 | 0.769 | 0.027 | 0.603 | 0.653 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.017 | 0.192 | 1.31 | 0.832 | 0.772 |
| w/o self-conditioned training | 0.862 | 0.767 | 0.035 | 0.594 | 0.650 | 0.365 | 0.551 | 0.024 | 0.198 | 1.35 | 0.832 | 0.770 |
| Training-window strategy | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@3 32 | M2T | FID | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||
| R@3 32 | M2T | R@3 32 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Trans (cm) | AP | ROC-AUC | ||||
| Random start | 0.859 | 0.762 | 0.035 | 0.597 | 0.651 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.027 | 0.187 | 1.48 | 0.829 | 0.765 |
| Mixture (Ours) | 0.874 | 0.769 | 0.027 | 0.603 | 0.653 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.017 | 0.192 | 1.31 | 0.832 | 0.772 |
| Instruction start | 0.866 | 0.764 | 0.029 | 0.596 | 0.652 | 0.371 | 0.551 | 0.019 | 0.196 | 1.28 | 0.831 | 0.768 |
| Variant | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@3 32 | M2T | FID | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||
| R@3 32 | M2T | R@3 32 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Trans (cm) | AP | ROC-AUC | ||||
| Sigmoid (Ours) | 0.874 | 0.769 | 0.027 | 0.603 | 0.653 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.017 | 0.192 | 1.31 | 0.832 | 0.772 |
| Softmax | 0.847 | 0.754 | 0.041 | 0.580 | 0.644 | 0.374 | 0.551 | 0.027 | 0.190 | 1.23 | 0.825 | 0.757 |
| Variant | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@3 32 | M2T | FID | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||
| R@3 32 | M2T | R@3 32 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Trans (cm) | AP | ROC-AUC | ||||
| ActionPlan | 0.829 | 0.724 | 0.022 | 0.405 | 0.585 | 0.303 | 0.547 | 0.274 | 0.330 | 2.16 | 0.733 | 0.653 |
| ActionPlan ∗ | 0.830 | 0.734 | 0.044 | 0.502 | 0.622 | 0.347 | 0.546 | 0.055 | 0.209 | 0.92 | 0.784 | 0.711 |
| ActionPlan ∗ + multi-text | 0.845 | 0.731 | 0.027 | 0.566 | 0.640 | 0.352 | 0.547 | 0.036 | 0.198 | 1.31 | 0.805 | 0.745 |
| TimelineControl | 0.874 | 0.769 | 0.027 | 0.603 | 0.653 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.017 | 0.192 | 1.31 | 0.832 | 0.772 |
| Variant | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@3 32 | M2T | FID | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||
| R@3 32 | M2T | R@3 32 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Trans (cm) | AP | ROC-AUC | ||||
| Full model | 0.874 | 0.769 | 0.027 | 0.603 | 0.653 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.017 | 0.192 | 1.31 | 0.832 | 0.772 |
| w/o block-causal self-attention | 0.870 | 0.770 | 0.023 | 0.586 | 0.649 | 0.364 | 0.553 | 0.019 | 0.212 | 1.22 | 0.826 | 0.767 |
| Variant | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@3 32 | M2T | FID | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||
| R@3 32 | M2T | R@3 32 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Trans (cm) | AP | ROC-AUC | ||||
| Full model | 0.874 | 0.769 | 0.027 | 0.603 | 0.653 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.017 | 0.192 | 1.31 | 0.832 | 0.772 |
| w/o online multi-track attention | 0.851 | 0.764 | 0.048 | 0.552 | 0.642 | 0.372 | 0.551 | 0.046 | 0.179 | 1.14 | 0.811 | 0.747 |
| Variant | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@3 32 | M2T | FID | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||
| R@3 32 | M2T | R@3 32 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Trans (cm) | AP | ROC-AUC | ||||
| Full model | 0.874 | 0.769 | 0.027 | 0.603 | 0.653 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.017 | 0.192 | 1.31 | 0.832 | 0.772 |
| w/o | 0.865 | 0.764 | 0.028 | 0.596 | 0.651 | 0.371 | 0.552 | 0.019 | 0.195 | 1.26 | 0.826 | 0.762 |
| Variant | HumanML3D | TimelineMotion | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R@3 32 | M2T | FID | Sequence alignment | Body-part alignment | Motion quality | Temporal adherence | ||||||||
| R@3 32 | M2T | R@3 32 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Trans (cm) | Root jitter | Body jitter | AP | ROC-AUC | ||||
| Full model | 0.874 | 0.769 | 0.027 | 0.603 | 0.653 | 0.374 | 0.553 | 0.017 | 0.192 | 1.31 | 1.417 | 0.614 | 0.832 | 0.772 |
| w/o | 0.872 | 0.771 | 0.026 | 0.595 | 0.653 | 0.372 | 0.555 | 0.021 | 0.187 | 1.27 | 1.757 | 0.680 | 0.827 | 0.763 |
| Testing Dataset | Method | Horizontal root (cm) | Body (cm) | End-effector (cm) | Contact F1 | M2T | FID | FID+ | Temporal adherence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AP | ROC-AUC | |||||||||
| HumanML3D | ARDY | 2.55 | 8.15 | 14.06 | 0.857 | 0.650 | 0.246 | – | – | – |
| TimelineControl | 4.01 | 5.42 | 7.95 | 0.939 | 0.786 | 0.020 | – | – | – | |
| TimelineMotion | ARDY | 4.13 | 9.98 | 16.88 | 0.897 | 0.565 | 0.221 | 0.308 | 0.715 | 0.630 |
| TimelineControl | 6.31 | 8.05 | 12.63 | 0.942 | 0.644 | 0.013 | 0.216 | 0.820 | 0.759 | |
Human Motion Generation
Human motion generation creates articulated movement from language, audio, video, spatial constraints, or interaction goals.
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