Reka Inverse Dynamics Model For Interactive World Models
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Oct 2, 2026
Reka Inverse Dynamics Model for Interactive World Models
Reka Inverse Dynamics Model for Interactive World Models
Model weights (Apache 2.0): RekaAI/Reka-Inverse-Dynamics-Model on Hugging Face Simulated environments are essential for robotics. They enable safe training and testing of robots. However, even the most sophisticated ones fail to capture the “noise” of the real world because of idealised physics and unnatural visuals.
Simulated environments are essential for robotics. They enable safe training and testing of robots. However, even the most sophisticated ones fail to capture the “noise” of the real world because of idealised physics and unnatural visuals.
Interactive World Models are different. They are visually more realistic, and can model more complex phenomena such as folding materials or squeezing towels. By embedding digital replicas into these dynamic environments, robots can execute commands through direct interaction. Here is the challenge though. True interactivity requires a world model to accurately respond to low-level commands (e.g., moving left or right). To solve this, we introduce the Reka Inverse Dynamics Model (RIDM), which extracts low-level commands directly from real-world video data to act as ‘captions’ describing physical changes in consecutive frames. RIDM is a compact, efficient model that processes short clips and extracts low-level motor commands like moving forward, sideways, turning or tilting. Even though the model is entirely trained on video games, by decoupling visuals from motion, its predictions transfer to real-world videos.
Predicted key probability W forward 0.85 A move left 0.34 S back 0.01 D move right 0.76 Shift walk 0.01
turn ( yaw ) 16.9° left ← left right → tilt ( pitch ) 1.4° up ← down up → First window of the clip
Blue bars show five movements; each carrying the name of the game control that produces it. The green dials show the camera turn and the camera tilt, in degrees.
1
Learn from the game
W
A
S
D
turn 12°
recorded gameplay
video, the keys held, the camera angles
video and the true actions
train the IDM
objective: from two frames, predict the keys held and how far the camera moved
IDM
2
Label our real video
our real video
no action labels at all
video only, no actions
IDM
the weights from step 1
what the camera did
forward
turn 12°
predicted labels
3
Train the world model
forward
turn 12°
the same video, now labelled
the actions came from the IDM
video and actions together
train the world model
on video and action pairs
world-language-action
understands actions, generates video
the same weights, carried over
the video, and the labels it predicted
Figure 1 — How RIDM can be used to train interactive world models.
1
Learn from the game
W
A
S
D
turn 12°
recorded gameplay
video, the keys held, the camera angles
video and the true actions
train the IDM
objective: from two frames, predict the keys held and how far the camera moved
IDM
the same weights, carried over
2
Label our real video
our real video
no action labels at all
video only, no actions
IDM
the weights from step 1
what the camera did
forward
turn 12°
predicted labels
the video, and the labels it predicted
3
Train the world model
forward
turn 12°
the same video, now labelled
the actions came from the IDM
video and actions together
train the world model
on video and action pairs
world-language-action
understands actions, generates video
Figure 1 — How RIDM can be used to train interactive world models.
The data We recorded gaming footages at 1280 × 720, 48 frames per second, with 11 ground-truth key commands, the mouse movement and the exact camera angles for every frame. The annotations are provided by the engine. What it looks like
Pool
Keys held
Turn
Tilt
Must travel
Rows
Forward
one pool with Turn, about half each
exactly W
2° or less
2° or less
walking pace or more
104,646
Turn
the same pool as Forward, not a second 104,646
none at all
10° or more
2° or less
1 unit or less
104,646
Sideways or back
A and D step sideways, S steps back
one of A, D, S
2° or less
2° or less
2 units or more
53,429
Tilt
the scarcest motion we train on
none at all
2° or less
10° or more
1 unit or less
1,554
Sideways + turn
added last, to tell a step from a turn
one of A, D
5° or more
no demand
2 units or more
50,000
Figure 2 — Gameplay clips with the associated ground-truth annotations.
Forward
one pool with Turn, about half each
Keys held
exactly W
Turn
2° or less
Tilt
2° or less
Must travel
walking pace or more
Rows
104,646
Turn
the same pool as Forward, not a second 104,646
Keys held
none at all
Turn
10° or more
Tilt
2° or less
Must travel
1 unit or less
Rows
104,646
Sideways or back
A and D step sideways, S steps back
Keys held
one of A, D, S
Turn
2° or less
Tilt
2° or less
Must travel
2 units or more
Rows
53,429
Tilt
the scarcest motion we train on
Keys held
none at all
Turn
2° or less
Tilt
10° or more
Must travel
1 unit or less
Rows
1,554
Sideways + turn
added last, to tell a step from a turn
Keys held
one of A, D
Turn
5° or more
Tilt
no demand
Must travel
2 units or more
Rows
50,000
Figure 2 — Gameplay clips with the associated ground-truth annotations.
The model Our model disentangles visuals from motion by projecting inputs into optical flow space. Since our goal is to use RIDM to automatically annotate real-world footages, not 3d gameplays, the method needs to transfer from games to real-world. We also compare that approach with a direct one that is working in the pixel space. To differentiate both, we use names: flow-based and pixel-based model. Training both models on random gaming footages will not work either. Successful approach requires data filtering and resampling. For instance, some actions such as backward or sideways strafe movements are much more rare than simple forward movements. Suitable resampling helps in learning these less common movements. Both models are compact. The flow-based model has 2.8m (2,785,499) parameters; with only 1.8m (1,795,337) trainable parameters and about 990k frozen that constitutes RAFT-small. The pixel-based model is fully trainable and has around 9.8m (9,836,063) parameters. Pixels
the IMPALA trunk, the one VPT uses for its policy
every pixel
IMPALA trunk...
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Notability
notability 7.0/10Notable research post from Reka on world models.