MotionSplicer: Part-Based Motion Editing
for 4D Volumetric Videos

πŸ“„ Abstract

4D volumetric video via Gaussian Splatting (GS) enables free viewpoint control of real-world scenes but does not enable motion editing. One challenge is achieving part-based control in multi-object scenes; prior works focus on single objects, assume rigid parts, or require manual annotations.

MotionSplicer is a template-free and annotation-free method that automatically discovers 3D parts in GS. To bridge the semantic-to-motion domain gap, it extracts initial parts from temporal difference images and resolves multi-view inconsistencies via an adaptive 3D unify-and-split process. For robust tracking, it optimizes a time-invariant feature grid with temporal refinement to learn spatially and temporally coherent skinning weights.

Experiments show that MotionSplicer can be applied more generally to objects and scenes than state-of-the-art methods, and enables creative motion edits like isolation, ghosting, and echo.

teaser

βš™οΈ Method

MotionSplicer models the scene with 3D Gaussians carrying part weights that move via linear blend skinning. A motion-aware 4D part discovery framework extracts motion handles from raw video without annotations, by lifting 2D segmentations of temporal difference images and applying a novel 3D unification-and-splitting process. Then, a continuous spatio-temporal optimization learns skinning weights via a time-invariant feature grid coupled with temporal consistency refinement, enforcing spatio-temporally coherent motion tracking for complex, non-rigid parts.

method

🧩 Discovered Parts: Skinning Weights & Handles

MotionSplicer automatically discovers parts without templates or manual annotations. Below we visualize the optimized skinning weights (top row) and the optimized handles (bottom row) across diverse objects.

🎬 4D Motion Editing

Once parts are discovered, previously impractical edits can be performed on a 4D volumetric video simply by selecting a part handle and adjusting its timing or motion: loop, isolation, echo, ghosting, speed, freeze, compositing, and (optionally spatial) scaling.

Loop ♾️

Captured motion
Novel motion

Isolation ☝️

Captured motion
Novel motion

Echo πŸ”οΈ

Captured motion
Novel motion

Ghosting πŸ‘»

Captured motion
Novel motion

Speed ⏰

Captured motion
Novel motion (right flipper faster)

Freeze ❄️

Captured motion
Novel motion (freeze skate rotation)

Compositing βž•

Reference FVV
Composited FVV

Scaling πŸ“ (optional 4D spatial editing)

Reference FVV
Scaled FVV

πŸ–₯️ Interactive Viewer

We build an interactive viewer for 4D motion editing, supporting per-part visualization, motion isolation, freeze, ghosting, echo, and optional 4D spatial editing. All code, including the viewer, will be open-sourced. Stay tuned!

4D motion editing

4D spatial editing

πŸ“Š Baseline Comparison

MotionSplicer handles complex multi-object scenes and non-rigid parts where rigid-articulation, rig-based, optimization-only, and table-top approaches struggle.

Kitchen doors: motion isolation

ArticulatedGS (CVPR 2025)
Ours

πŸ“– Citation


            

πŸ™ Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NASA grant #80NSSC23M0075 and ONR DURIP grant N00014-23-1-2804.