---
license: apache-2.0
task_categories:
  - video-to-video
  - image-to-video
language:
  - en
tags:
  - video
  - video-generation
  - game-rendering
  - white-box-rendering
  - interactive-games
  - unreal-engine
  - magpie
pretty_name: Magpie Dataset Lite
size_categories:
  - n<1K
---

# Magpie Dataset Lite

**Paper:** [Magpie: Real-Time World Renderer for Interactive Games](https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.27168)  
**Project Page:** [https://zhanxy.xyz/Magpie-website](https://zhanxy.xyz/Magpie-website)

**Magpie Dataset Lite** is a publicly released subset of the Magpie interactive game rendering dataset ([arXiv:2608.27168](https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.27168)). Magpie is a real-time generative world-rendering system that separates gameplay execution in a game engine from visual synthesis in a render server. This lite release provides **561 gameplay trajectories** with a combined **`render.mp4` duration of 105 hours**, covering **20 scenes**.

Each sample includes time-synchronized **high-fidelity render** and **white-box** video streams, together with structured interaction metadata recorded during capture.

## Dataset Summary

| Item | Value |
|------|-------|
| Paper | [arXiv:2608.27168](https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.27168) |
| Project page | [Magpie Website](https://zhanxy.xyz/Magpie-website) |
| Relation to full Magpie dataset | Partial release (lite subset) |
| Number of trajectories | 561 |
| Total duration (`render.mp4`) | **105 hours** |
| Number of scenes | 20 |
| Video streams per sample | 2 (`render.mp4`, `white_box.mp4`) |
| Metadata per sample | 1 JSON file |
| Capture setting | Unreal Engine, human-operated gameplay |
| Original per-stream resolution | 1920 × 1080 |
| Original frame rate | 60 FPS |

## What Is Magpie?

Magpie learns to convert engine-produced **white-box observations** into **photorealistic or stylized renderings** while gameplay rules and state remain in the game engine. During data collection, operators play controllable Unreal Engine scenes naturally—exploring, interacting, changing viewpoint, idling, and transitioning between behaviors—rather than executing isolated scripted actions.

Each trajectory therefore provides paired supervision for **structure-to-appearance** video generation:

- **`render.mp4`**: high-fidelity target stream
- **`white_box.mp4`**: synchronized white-box stream preserving layout, geometry, occlusion, and principal motion while omitting final textures, materials, and complex lighting

For more details, see the [Magpie project page](https://zhanxy.xyz/Magpie-website) and the paper: [Magpie: Real-Time World Renderer for Interactive Games](https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.27168).

## Directory Structure

Each trajectory is stored under `sceneXX/playerYY/`:

```text
magpie_lite_dataset/
├── scene00/
│   ├── echo/
│   │   ├── render.mp4
│   │   ├── white_box.mp4
│   │   └── scene00_echo.json
│   ├── player1/
│   │   ├── render.mp4
│   │   ├── white_box.mp4
│   │   └── scene00_player1.json
│   └── ...
├── scene03/
├── scene04/
│   ├── player9_part1/
│   ├── player9_part2/
│   └── ...
└── scene28/
```

### Naming conventions

- **Scene folders** use numeric IDs only, e.g. `scene00`, `scene16`, `scene28`.
- **Player folders** identify the operator/session, e.g. `echo`, `kellan`, `player1`, `player15`.
- Some source captures contain multiple nested takes for the same logical player. Those are exported as separate trajectories with suffixes such as `player9_part1` and `player9_part2`.
- **Metadata files** are named `{scene}_{player}.json`, e.g. `scene00_echo.json`.

## File Descriptions

### `render.mp4`

High-fidelity gameplay video. It provides the visual target stream used for training and evaluation of generative rendering.

### `white_box.mp4`

Synchronized white-box gameplay video from the **same timestamp and viewpoint** as `render.mp4`. It preserves scene layout, collision-relevant structure, principal silhouettes, and visible state changes while removing final appearance details.

Both videos in a sample are frame-aligned and should be consumed as a pair.

### `{scene}_{player}.json`

Structured interaction metadata copied from the original capture session. It is time-aligned with the paired videos and contains:

- **`uuid`**: unique identifier for the capture session
- **`key_events`**: keyboard input events
- **`ue_events`**: Unreal Engine camera / viewpoint records

#### `timestamp` field

Each entry in `key_events` and `ue_events` includes a **`timestamp`** field: an integer counting **milliseconds elapsed since the start of the recording session** (`t = 0` at session start). Events are ordered by `timestamp`, but they may be sampled at irregular intervals rather than once per video frame.

To align metadata with the paired videos at **60 FPS**:

```text
frame_index = floor(timestamp_ms * 60 / 1000)
timestamp_ms  = frame_index * 1000 / 60
```

- **`key_events`**: each entry has `timestamp`, `key` (keyboard key name), and `pressed` (`true` = key down, `false` = key up). At a given frame time, apply all events with `timestamp <= t_ms` to obtain the currently held keys.
- **`ue_events`**: each entry has `timestamp`, camera pose (`loc_x`, `loc_y`, `loc_z`, `rot_p`, `rot_y`, `rot_r`), `fov`, and capture resolution (`res_x`, `res_y`). For times between two consecutive records, linearly interpolate numeric fields by `timestamp`.

## Scenes Included in Lite

This release includes the following 20 scenes:

`scene00`, `scene03`, `scene04`, `scene06`, `scene08`, `scene09`, `scene11`, `scene12`, `scene13`, `scene14`, `scene16`, `scene17`, `scene19`, `scene20`, `scene21`, `scene24`, `scene25`, `scene26`, `scene27`, `scene28`

### Approximate duration by scene (`render.mp4`)

| Scene | Duration |
|-------|----------|
| scene00 | 10:12:18 |
| scene03 | 4:59:01 |
| scene04 | 12:38:41 |
| scene06 | 6:36:53 |
| scene08 | 5:07:10 |
| scene09 | 2:11:44 |
| scene11 | 5:44:45 |
| scene12 | 5:37:31 |
| scene13 | 4:50:18 |
| scene14 | 3:35:42 |
| scene16 | 3:58:13 |
| scene17 | 5:23:38 |
| scene19 | 1:42:07 |
| scene20 | 2:10:13 |
| scene21 | 3:50:49 |
| scene24 | 3:15:35 |
| scene25 | 4:05:23 |
| scene26 | 9:38:41 |
| scene27 | 4:55:55 |
| scene28 | 4:26:03 |
| **Total** | **105:00:38** |

## Intended Uses

This dataset is intended for research on:

- white-box-conditioned video generation
- game / interactive world rendering
- structure-to-appearance synthesis
- long-horizon human gameplay video modeling
- multimodal analysis of synchronized render + control metadata

## Usage Example

```python
from pathlib import Path
import json

root = Path("magpie_lite_dataset")
sample = root / "scene00" / "echo"

render = sample / "render.mp4"
white_box = sample / "white_box.mp4"
meta = sample / "scene00_echo.json"

with meta.open("r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    events = json.load(f)

print(render.exists(), white_box.exists())
print("key events:", len(events.get("key_events", [])))
print("camera events:", len(events.get("ue_events", [])))
```

### Map events to frames at a target FPS (e.g. 24)

`timestamp` is in milliseconds from session start. To obtain per-frame keyboard state and camera pose at an arbitrary frame rate:

```python
from pathlib import Path
import json
import math

CAMERA_FIELDS = ["loc_x", "loc_y", "loc_z", "rot_p", "rot_y", "rot_r", "fov"]


def interpolate_camera(ue_events, t_ms, idx_hint=0):
    """Linearly interpolate camera pose at time t_ms (milliseconds)."""
    n = len(ue_events)
    while idx_hint + 1 < n and ue_events[idx_hint + 1]["timestamp"] <= t_ms:
        idx_hint += 1

    if t_ms <= ue_events[0]["timestamp"]:
        return {k: float(ue_events[0][k]) for k in CAMERA_FIELDS}, 0
    if t_ms >= ue_events[-1]["timestamp"]:
        return {k: float(ue_events[-1][k]) for k in CAMERA_FIELDS}, n - 1

    i0, i1 = idx_hint, min(idx_hint + 1, n - 1)
    t0 = float(ue_events[i0]["timestamp"])
    t1 = float(ue_events[i1]["timestamp"])
    alpha = 0.0 if t1 == t0 else (t_ms - t0) / (t1 - t0)
    cam = {
        k: float(ue_events[i0][k]) + alpha * (float(ue_events[i1][k]) - float(ue_events[i0][k]))
        for k in CAMERA_FIELDS
    }
    return cam, i0


def map_events_to_frames(events, fps=24.0, num_frames=None):
    """
    Map key_events / ue_events onto a regular frame grid.

    Returns a list of dicts:
      {frame_idx, timestamp_ms, pressed_keys, camera}
    """
    key_events = sorted(events["key_events"], key=lambda e: e["timestamp"])
    ue_events = sorted(events["ue_events"], key=lambda e: e["timestamp"])

    if num_frames is None:
        end_ms = max(
            key_events[-1]["timestamp"] if key_events else 0,
            ue_events[-1]["timestamp"] if ue_events else 0,
        )
        num_frames = int(math.floor(end_ms * fps / 1000.0)) + 1

    frames = []
    key_idx = 0
    ue_idx = 0
    active_keys = set()

    for frame_idx in range(num_frames):
        t_ms = int(round(frame_idx * 1000.0 / fps))

        while key_idx < len(key_events) and key_events[key_idx]["timestamp"] <= t_ms:
            ev = key_events[key_idx]
            if ev["pressed"]:
                active_keys.add(ev["key"])
            else:
                active_keys.discard(ev["key"])
            key_idx += 1

        camera, ue_idx = interpolate_camera(ue_events, t_ms, ue_idx)
        frames.append(
            {
                "frame_idx": frame_idx,
                "timestamp_ms": t_ms,
                "pressed_keys": sorted(active_keys),
                "camera": camera,
            }
        )
    return frames


meta = Path("magpie_lite_dataset/scene00/echo/scene00_echo.json")
with meta.open("r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    events = json.load(f)

# Example: resample control + camera to 24 FPS
frames_24 = map_events_to_frames(events, fps=24.0)
print(frames_24[0])
# {'frame_idx': 0, 'timestamp_ms': 0, 'pressed_keys': [...], 'camera': {...}}

# Frame index <-> timestamp helpers
fps = 24.0
frame_idx = int(math.floor(12345 * fps / 1000.0))   # timestamp_ms -> frame
t_ms = int(round(frame_idx * 1000.0 / fps))          # frame -> timestamp_ms
```

## Citation

If you use this dataset, please cite the Magpie paper:

```bibtex
@article{zhan2026magpie,
  title={Magpie: Real-Time World Renderer for Interactive Games},
  author={Zhan, Xiaoyu and Wang, Xinyu and Zhang, Xiaohong and Zhu, Huanjie and Sun, Tengjiao and Fang, Pengcheng and Yu, Jiaxing and Guo, Yanwen and Fu, Dongjie},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.27168},
  year={2026},
  url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.27168}
}
```

## License

This dataset is released under the **Apache License 2.0**.