On Pitfalls of Test-Time AdaptationHao Zhao, Yuejiang Liu, Alexandre Alahi et al.
Test-Time Adaptation (TTA) has recently emerged as a promising approach for tackling the robustness challenge under distribution shifts. However, the lack of consistent settings and systematic studies in prior literature hinders thorough assessments of existing methods. To address this issue, we present TTAB, a test-time adaptation benchmark that encompasses ten state-of-the-art algorithms, a diverse array of distribution shifts, and two evaluation protocols. Through extensive experiments, our benchmark reveals three common pitfalls in prior efforts. First, selecting appropriate hyper-parameters, especially for model selection, is exceedingly difficult due to online batch dependency. Second, the effectiveness of TTA varies greatly depending on the quality and properties of the model being adapted. Third, even under optimal algorithmic conditions, none of the existing methods are capable of addressing all common types of distribution shifts. Our findings underscore the need for future research in the field to conduct rigorous evaluations on a broader set of models and shifts, and to re-examine the assumptions behind the empirical success of TTA. Our code is available at \url{https://github.com/lins-lab/ttab}.
SyncTalk: The Devil is in the Synchronization for Talking Head SynthesisZiqiao Peng, Wentao Hu, Yue Shi et al.
Achieving high synchronization in the synthesis of realistic, speech-driven talking head videos presents a significant challenge. Traditional Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) struggle to maintain consistent facial identity, while Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) methods, although they can address this issue, often produce mismatched lip movements, inadequate facial expressions, and unstable head poses. A lifelike talking head requires synchronized coordination of subject identity, lip movements, facial expressions, and head poses. The absence of these synchronizations is a fundamental flaw, leading to unrealistic and artificial outcomes. To address the critical issue of synchronization, identified as the "devil" in creating realistic talking heads, we introduce SyncTalk. This NeRF-based method effectively maintains subject identity, enhancing synchronization and realism in talking head synthesis. SyncTalk employs a Face-Sync Controller to align lip movements with speech and innovatively uses a 3D facial blendshape model to capture accurate facial expressions. Our Head-Sync Stabilizer optimizes head poses, achieving more natural head movements. The Portrait-Sync Generator restores hair details and blends the generated head with the torso for a seamless visual experience. Extensive experiments and user studies demonstrate that SyncTalk outperforms state-of-the-art methods in synchronization and realism. We recommend watching the supplementary video: https://ziqiaopeng.github.io/synctalk
Prototype-based HyperAdapter for Sample-Efficient Multi-task TuningHao Zhao, Jie Fu, Zhaofeng He
Parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) has shown its effectiveness in adapting the pre-trained language models to downstream tasks while only updating a small number of parameters. Despite the success, most existing methods independently adapt to each task without considering knowledge transfer between tasks and are limited to low-data regimes. To overcome this issue, we propose Prototype-based HyperAdapter (PHA), a novel framework built on the adapter-tuning and hypernetwork. It introduces an instance-dense retriever and a prototypical hypernetwork to generate the conditional modules in a sample-efficient manner. This leads to comparable performance improvements against existing PEFT methods on multi-task learning and few-shot transfer learning. More importantly, when the available data size gets smaller, our method outperforms other strong baselines by a large margin. Based on our extensive empirical experiments across various datasets, we demonstrate that PHA strikes a better trade-off between trainable parameters, accuracy on stream tasks, and sample efficiency.
10.2CVMay 3, 2025
PosePilot: Steering Camera Pose for Generative World Models with Self-supervised DepthBu Jin, Weize Li, Baihan Yang et al.
Recent advancements in autonomous driving (AD) systems have highlighted the potential of world models in achieving robust and generalizable performance across both ordinary and challenging driving conditions. However, a key challenge remains: precise and flexible camera pose control, which is crucial for accurate viewpoint transformation and realistic simulation of scene dynamics. In this paper, we introduce PosePilot, a lightweight yet powerful framework that significantly enhances camera pose controllability in generative world models. Drawing inspiration from self-supervised depth estimation, PosePilot leverages structure-from-motion principles to establish a tight coupling between camera pose and video generation. Specifically, we incorporate self-supervised depth and pose readouts, allowing the model to infer depth and relative camera motion directly from video sequences. These outputs drive pose-aware frame warping, guided by a photometric warping loss that enforces geometric consistency across synthesized frames. To further refine camera pose estimation, we introduce a reverse warping step and a pose regression loss, improving viewpoint precision and adaptability. Extensive experiments on autonomous driving and general-domain video datasets demonstrate that PosePilot significantly enhances structural understanding and motion reasoning in both diffusion-based and auto-regressive world models. By steering camera pose with self-supervised depth, PosePilot sets a new benchmark for pose controllability, enabling physically consistent, reliable viewpoint synthesis in generative world models.