[CVPR 2026] ViStoryBench: A Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Story Visualization

       

ViStoryBench introduces a comprehensive and diverse benchmark for story visualization, enabling thorough evaluation of models across narrative complexity, character consistency, and visual style.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/19b17deb-416a-400a-b071-df21ba58f4b7

🚩 Latest Updates

• [now] 🏆 Ongoing leaderboard maintenance and evaluation of new story visualization methods.
• [2026/02/21] 🔥 CVPR 2026 accepted! See you in Denver!
• [2025.12.19] 📄 arXiv v4 is now available, more recent models are evaluated, including NanoBanana-Pro.
• [2025.08.19] 🛠️ Major code v1 update: Full benchmark implementation released.
• [2025.08.12] 📄 arXiv v3 is now available.
• [2025.06.25] 📄 arXiv v2 has been published.
• [2025.05.30] 📝 Technical report v1 released on arXiv.
• [2025.05.21] 🚀 Initial project launch and code release.

🏛️ Architecture & Contribution

ViStoryBench is designed with a modular and extensible architecture. The core of our evaluation pipeline is the BaseEvaluator abstract class, which allows for easy integration of new evaluation metrics.

Adding a New Evaluator:

1. Create a new class that inherits from vistorybench.bench.base_evaluator.BaseEvaluator.
2. Implement the required methods (__init__, evaluate).
3. Register your new evaluator in vistorybench/bench_run.py.

We welcome contributions from the community! If you have a new metric or an improvement, please feel free to submit a pull request.

🛠️ Setup

Download

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ViStoryBench/vistorybench.git
cd vistorybench

Environment

conda create -n vistorybench python=3.11
conda activate vistorybench

# for cuda 12.4
conda install pytorch==2.4.0 torchvision==0.19.0 torchaudio==2.4.0 pytorch-cuda=12.4 -c pytorch -c nvidia
# for cuda 12.1
pip install torch==2.2.1 torchvision==0.17.1 torchaudio==2.2.1 --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu121
# for cuda 11.8
pip install torch==2.2.1 torchvision==0.17.1 torchaudio==2.2.1 --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu118

pip install -r requirements.txt -i https://pypi.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/simple --trusted-host pypi.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn

Choose the torch version that suits you on this website: https://pytorch.org/get-started/previous-versions/

🚀 Usage

1. Dataset Preparation🐻

1.1. About ViStory Dataset

80 stories and 344 characters, both Chinese and English,

Each story included Plot Correspondence, Setting Description, Shot Perspective Design, On-Stage Characters and Static Shot Description

Each character included at least one inference image and corresponding prompt description.

1.2. Dataset Downloading...

We provide an automated dataset download script that allows you to download full ViStory Dataset with a single command:

cd ViStoryBench
sh download_dataset.sh

Alternatively, you can download it by following these steps:

📥 Download our ViStory Datasets (🤗huggingface) and save it in data/dataset.

• If you use a custom path, please full dataset_path in vistorybench/config.yaml.

After the download is complete, please rename the ​​ViStoryBench​​ folder to ​​ViStory​​. Folder structure of ViStory Datasets:

data/dataset/
├── ViStory/ # rename ‘​​ViStoryBench​’​ to ​​‘ViStory​’
│   ├── 01/
│   │   ├── image/
│   │   │   └── Big Brown Rabbit/
│   │   │       ├── 00.jpg
│   │   │       └── ...
│   │   └── story.json
│   └── 02/
│       └── ...
└── ...

2. Inference on ViStory Dataset

2.1. Dataset Loading

Use our standardized loading script dataset_load.py or your own data loader. Run this command to verify successful dataset loading:

python vistorybench/dataset_loader/dataset_load.py

2.2. Dataset Adapting

Aligning the dataset format with the specified method's input requirements.

Pre-built dataset conversion scripts are available for several pre-defined methods, all located in vistorybench/dataset_loader. adapt_base.py is a template script for dataset conversion. All pre-built dataset conversion scripts are created based on this template.

• adapt_base.py
• adapt2animdirector.py
• adapt2seedstory.py,
• adapt2storyadapter.py,
• adapt2storydiffusion.py,
• adapt2storygen.py,
• adapt2uno.py,
• adapt2vlogger.py,

Example of UNO:

python vistorybench/dataset_loader/adapt2uno.py \
--language 'en' # choice=['en','ch']

You can create a script to convert the ViStory/ViStory-lite dataset into your method's required input format (Based on template script adapt_base.py).

• The converted dataset will be saved to data/dataset_processed.
• If you use a custom path, please full processed_dataset_path in vistorybench/config.yaml

2.3. Inference custom

Pre-modify inference scripts of several pre-defined methods are available for reference, all located in vistorybench/data_process/inference_custom.

• movieagent/run_custom.py
• seedstory/vis_custom_sink.py
• storyadapter/run_custom.py
• storydiffusion/gradio_app_sdxl_specific_id_low_vram_custom.py
• storygen/inference_custom_mix.py
• storygen/inference_custom.py
• uno/inference_custom.py
• vlogger/vlog_read_script_sample_custom.py

You can modify your method's story visualization inference scripts according to the specified requirements.

• We suggest saving generated results to data/outputs.
• If you use a custom path, please full outputs_path in vistorybench/config.yaml

SD Embed. Our ViStory Dataset contains extensive complex text descriptions. However, not all models support long-text inputs. To overcome the 77-token prompt limitation in Stable Diffusion, we utilize sd_embed to generate long-weighted prompt embeddings for lengthy text.

3. Generated-Results Reading

3.1 Output Structure

Make sure your generated results are organized according to the following folder structure:

data/outputs/
├── method_name/
│   └── mode_name/
│       └── language_name/
│           └── timestamp/
│               ├── shots/
│                 ├── story_id/
│                 │   ├── shot_XX.png
│                 │   └── ...
│                 └── 02/
│                     └── ...
└── method_2/
    └── ...

• method_name: The model used (e.g., StoryDiffusion, UNO, GPT4o, etc.)
• mode_name: The mode used of method(e.g., base, SD3, etc.)
• language_name: The language used (e.g., en, ch)
• timestamp: Generation run timestamp (YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS) (e.g., 20250000_111111)
• story_id: The story identifier (e.g., 01, 02, etc.)
• shot_XX.jpg: Generated image for the shot

Example of UNO:

data/outputs/
├── uno/
│   └── base/
│       └── en/
│           └── 20250000-111111/
│               ├── shots/
│                 ├── 01/
│                 │   ├── 00.png
│                 │   └── ...
│                 └── 02/
│                     └── ...
└── method_2/
    └── ...

Example of your method:

data/outputs/
├── method_1/
│   └── mode_1/
│       └── language_1/
│           └── 20250000-111111/
│               ├── 01/
│               │   ├── shots
│               │     ├── 00.png
│               │     └── ...
│               └── 02/
│                   └── ...
└── method_2/
    └── ...

3.2 Automated Reading

When you run the evaluation code, it will automatically perform data reading (ensure both the ViStoryBench dataset and the generated results conform to the standard directory structure specified above). The generated-results reading code has been uniformly integrated into the following file: vistorybench/dataset_loader/read_outputs.py

4. Evaluation & Analysis 😺

4.1 Download Weights

We provide an automated pretrain-weight download script that allows you to download all the following weights with a single command.

sh download_weights.sh

• All of them will be saved in data/pretrain.
• If you use a custom path, please full pretrain_path in vistorybench/config.yaml.

Alternatively, you can download them separately by following these steps:

---

For CIDS Score and Prompt Align Score:

• a. GroundingDINO weights. Download groundingdino_swint_ogc.pth weights from here. Save it in the data/pretrain/groundingdino/weights folder (Please create it in advance).

• b. InsightFace antelopev2. Download antelopev2.zip from here. Unzip it and save them in the data/pretrain/insightface/models/antelopev2 folder (Please create it in advance).

• c. SigLIP weights. Download siglip-so400m-patch14-384 🤗 weights. Save them in the /data/pretrain/google/siglip-so400m-patch14-384 folder (Please create it in advance).

• d. BERT weights. Download bert-base-uncased 🤗 weights. Save them in the data/pretrain/google-bert/bert-base-uncased folder (Please create it in advance).

• e. AdaFace weights. Download adaface_ir101_webface12m.ckpt weights from here. Save it in the /data/pretrain/adaface folder (Please create it in advance).

• f. Facenet vggface2. Download vggface2 automatically during initial execution.

• g. Facexlib weights. Download detection_Resnet50_Final.pth from here to .../facexlib/weights/detection_Resnet50_Final.pth and parsing_parsenet.pth from here to .../facexlib/weights/parsing_parsenet.pth automatically during initial execution.

---

For CSD Score:

• CSD weights. Download csd_vit-large.pth weights from here. Save it in the /data/pretrain/csd folder (Please create it in advance).

---

For Aesthetic Score:

• Aesthetic predictor weights. Download aesthetic_predictor_v2_5.pth weights from here. Save it in the /data/pretrain/aesthetic_predictor folder (Please create it in advance).

---

For Inception Score

• Inception weights. Download inception_v3_google-0cc3c7bd.pth automatically during initial execution.

---

4.2. Running Evaluation

Navigate to the source code directory:

cd vistorybench

Example Command:

# Run all available metrics for the 'uno' method in English
python bench_run.py --method uno --language en

# Run only the CIDS and CSD metrics for 'uno'
python bench_run.py --method uno --metrics cids csd --language en

# Run all metrics for a specific timestamp
python bench_run.py --method uno --language en --timestamp 20250824_141800

⭐️ Key Parameters:

• --method (Required): Specify the method (model) to evaluate (e.g., uno, storydiffusion).
• --metrics (Optional): A space-separated list of metrics to run (e.g., cids, csd, aesthetic). If omitted, all registered evaluators will be executed.
• --language (Required): The language of the dataset to evaluate (en or ch).
• --timestamp (Optional): Specify a particular generation run to evaluate. If omitted, the latest run will be used.
• --mode (Optional): Mode name for the method (e.g., base). Used to locate outputs under outputs/<method>/<mode>/<language>/<timestamp>/.
• --resume (Optional, default: True):
  • True: Use the specified --timestamp or the latest available timestamp.
  • False: Create a new timestamp under results and write evaluation outputs there.
• --dataset_path, --outputs_path, --pretrain_path, --result_path (Optional): Override core paths for dataset, generated outputs, pretrain weights, and evaluation results. Defaults come from YAML core.paths or built-in defaults.
• --api_key (Optional): API key for PromptAlign GPT calls. If omitted, the evaluator reads from the environment variable VISTORYBENCH_API_KEY.
• --base_url, --model_id (Optional): Override PromptAlign GPT endpoint and model ID for this run. These values override YAML evaluators.prompt_align.gpt.base_url / model at runtime.

Note:

• Minimal YAML must include core.runtime.device (e.g., cuda or cpu).
• PromptAlign optional config lives under evaluators.prompt_align.gpt (model, base_url). CLI --model_id/--base_url override these per-run without changing the YAML.

CIDS copy-paste note: when a character has only one reference image, the current evaluator uses a mirrored reference image for copy-paste computation (commit 51e2e196823939de63da9d486fe84b653f4a8988). The paper and project homepage numbers were generated before this fix, so rerunning CIDS with the latest code may produce slightly different copy-paste values.

✅ Minimal config.yaml (required fields)

Your config.yaml should be minimal and explicit. At minimum, specify device under core.runtime. Paths can remain defaults or be customized here.

core:
  paths:
    dataset: data/dataset
    outputs: data/outputs
    pretrain: data/pretrain
    results: data/bench_results
  runtime:
    device: cuda  # or cpu

# Optional: CIDS knobs (uncomment to override defaults)
#  cids:
#    ref_mode: origin
#    use_multi_face_encoder: false
#    ensemble_method: average
#    detection:
#      dino:
#        box_threshold: 0.25
#        text_threshold: 0.25
#    encoders:
#      clip:
#        model_id: openai/clip-vit-large-patch14
#    matching:
#      superfluous_threshold: 0.8
#      topk_per_nochar: 5
#    ensemble_weights:
#      arcface: 0.4
#      adaface: 0.4
#      facenet: 0.2

Notes:

• core.runtime.device is required at runtime; the tool will exit if missing.
• PromptAlign API key is read from env var VISTORYBENCH_API_KEY or via --api_key.
• CLI --base_url and --model_id override evaluators.prompt_align.gpt.base_url/model per run without changing YAML.

Create and Configure the .env File

For security best practices, your API key should be stored in an environment file rather than being hardcoded. The ViStoryBench project is designed to read this sensitive information from a .env file.

1. Copy the .env.example File

   In the root directory of the project, run the following command to copy the example file. If .env.example does not exist, simply create a new file named .env.

   cp .env.example .env
   

2. Fill in the .env File

   Open the newly created .env file and fill in the following fields. As mentioned in the README, the API key is read from the VISTORYBENCH_API_KEY environment variable.

   # .env
   
   # The base URL for your API service provider.
   # This can also be set in config.yaml, but is convenient here.
   BASE_URL="https://api.openai.com/v1"
   
   # The model ID you wish to use for evaluations.
   # This can also be set in config.yaml.
   MODEL_ID="gpt-4.1"
   
   # [REQUIRED] Your API Key.
   # Replace "sk-..." with your actual secret key.
   API_KEY="sk-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
   

Important Notes:

• API_KEY is mandatory. The PromptAlign evaluator will fail if it cannot find this environment variable.
• Do not commit your .env file containing the real API key to any public repository like GitHub. The project's .gitignore file should already be configured to prevent this.

⭐️ The pre-defined methods include:

STORY_IMG = ['uno', 'seedstory', 'storygen', 'storydiffusion', 'storyadapter', 'theatergen']
STORY_VIDEO = ['movieagent', 'animdirector', 'vlogger', 'mmstoryagent']
CLOSED_SOURCE = ['gemini', 'gpt4o']
BUSINESS = ['moki', 'morphic_studio', 'bairimeng_ai', 'shenbimaliang', 'xunfeihuiying', 'doubao']

4.3. Results Structure

After running the evaluation, the results will be stored in the data/bench_results directory with the following structure:

data/bench_results/
└── method_name/
    └── mode_name/
        └── language_name/
            └── YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS/
                ├── summary.json
                ├── metadata.json
                ├── cids/
                │   ├── cids_results.json
                │   └── ...
                ├── csd/
                │   ├── csd_self_results.json
                │   └── csd_cross_results.json
                └── ... (other metrics)

• summary.json: Contains the averaged scores for all metrics.
• metadata.json: Stores metadata about the evaluation run (method, timestamp, etc.).
• Metric-specific directories (cids/, csd/, etc.): Contain detailed results for each metric. Here is the concise English version for your README.md:

📅 Changelog

[2025.12] v1.3.0

• Optimized matching algorithm: switched from Greedy to Hungarian.
• Removed dino topk clip logic.
• Added skip handling for "no story" images.

[2025.11] v1.2.0

• Updated pretrain weight source to ViStoryBench/VistoryBench_pretrain.
• Fixed markdown output paths and copy-paste calculation bugs.
• Added utility functions.

[2025.10] v1.1.0

• Major Refactor: bench_run.py now supports auto-discovery and batch evaluation.
• Structure Optimization: Moved data loading logic to the dataset_loader directory.
• New Features: Added support for full/lite dataset splits; added OOCM metrics and Single Action Alignment.

[2025.08] v1.0.0

• Initial release of ViStoryBench.

📝 License

The evaluation code for ViStoryBench is released under the Apache 2.0 License, while the ViStoryBench dataset is distributed under the MIT License.

📚 Citation

@article{zhuang2025vistorybench,
  title={ViStoryBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Story Visualization}, 
  author={Cailin Zhuang, Ailin Huang, Yaoqi Hu, Jingwei Wu, Wei Cheng, Jiaqi Liao, Hongyuan Wang, Xinyao Liao, Weiwei Cai, Hengyuan Xu, Xuanyang Zhang, Xianfang Zeng, Zhewei Huang, Gang Yu, Chi Zhang},
  journal={arXiv preprint arxiv:2505.24862}, 
  year={2025}
}

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