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@SqrtRyan
Created January 21, 2026 09:47
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Full Research Report: LTX-2 Model Architecture Comparison
Executive Summary
Your key question answered: The IC (In-Context) models and I2V (Image-to-Video) models use fundamentally different conditioning approaches, but critically, neither uses channel
concatenation to expand the input channels. LTX-2 maintains 128 latent channels for ALL model variants.
---
1. Input Channel Dimensions (The Core Answer)
From direct checkpoint inspection:
┌─────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┬────────────────┐
│ Checkpoint │ patchify_proj.weight Shape │ Input Channels │
├─────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼────────────────┤
│ ltx-2-19b-dev.safetensors │ [4096, 128] │ 128 │
├─────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼────────────────┤
│ ltx-2-19b-distilled.safetensors │ [4096, 128] │ 128 │
├─────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼────────────────┤
│ ltx-2-19b-dev-fp8.safetensors │ [4096, 128] │ 128 │
├─────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼────────────────┤
│ ltx-2-19b-distilled-fp8.safetensors │ [4096, 128] │ 128 │
└─────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┴────────────────┘
There is NO model with [4096, 256] shape - meaning no LTX-2 checkpoint uses channel concatenation for image conditioning.
---
2. How T2V (Text-to-Video) Works
VAE Configuration:
- Input: 3 RGB channels
- Output: 128 latent channels (LC = 128)
- Compression: 32x spatial, 8x temporal
Transformer Input:
- patchify_proj: Projects 128 latent channels → 4096 hidden dim
- 48 transformer blocks
- Text conditioning via cross-attention (4096-dim Gemma3 embeddings)
---
3. How I2V (Image-to-Video) Works in LTX-2
LTX-2 uses "Latent Replacement" NOT channel concatenation:
1. Conditioning image is encoded via the same VAE → 128 channels
2. These latents are temporally concatenated (placed at frame 0)
3. Each token gets an independent diffusion timestep:
- Conditioning frame: t_c ≈ 0 (low/no noise)
- Generated frames: t = 1 (full noise)
4. The model learns to interpret timestep as a conditioning signal
This means I2V and T2V use the EXACT SAME model checkpoint - no architectural difference.
---
4. How IC (In-Context) LoRAs Work
IC LoRAs are fundamentally different from I2V:
Structure (from checkpoint inspection):
- 960 keys per IC LoRA (canny, depth, pose, detailer)
- All keys are transformer block LoRA weights only
- NO patchify_proj modifications - input channels unchanged
- LoRA rank: 64 (256 for detailer)
Conditioning Mechanism:
- Control signals (Canny edges, depth maps, poses) are encoded via VAE → 128-channel "guiding latents"
- These guiding latents are additively blended into the diffusion process (not concatenated)
- Injection happens at the pipeline level, not architectural level
- Fixed strength of 1.0 (unlike regular LoRAs)
Key Insight: IC LoRAs teach the attention layers to follow spatial control signals through weight modifications, not by changing input dimensions.
---
5. Direct Comparison: IC vs I2V
┌─────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Aspect │ I2V (Latent Replacement) │ IC (In-Context LoRA) │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Input Channels │ 128 (unchanged) │ 128 (unchanged) │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Conditioning Method │ Temporal concatenation at frame 0 │ Additive guiding latents │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Timestep Handling │ Different timesteps per token │ Same timesteps │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Requires LoRA │ No │ Yes │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Extra Parameters │ None │ ~327M (rank 64) │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Checkpoint Change │ None - same model │ LoRA weights applied │
├─────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Control Type │ First-frame appearance │ Spatial structure (edges, depth, pose) │
└─────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────┘
---
6. Do They Have the Same Parameters?
Base models (dev, distilled): Identical architecture - 21.64B parameters, 4052 tensors
IC LoRAs add parameters:
┌───────────────┬──────┬──────────────────┬──────┐
│ IC LoRA │ Keys │ Parameters │ Rank │
├───────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┼──────┤
│ Canny-control │ 960 │ 327M │ 64 │
├───────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┼──────┤
│ Pose-control │ 960 │ 327M │ 64 │
├───────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┼──────┤
│ Detailer │ 960 │ 1.3B │ 256 │
├───────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┼──────┤
│ Depth-control │ - │ (corrupted file) │ - │
└───────────────┴──────┴──────────────────┴──────┘
Camera LoRAs (for comparison):
┌───────────────────────────┬──────┬──────┐
│ Type │ Keys │ Rank │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼──────┤
│ Dolly (in/out/left/right) │ 960 │ 32 │
├───────────────────────────┼──────┼──────┤
│ Jib/Static │ 2496 │ 128 │
└───────────────────────────┴──────┴──────┘
---
7. The "Extra Tokens" Question
You asked about IC needing "extra tokens" - here's the clarification:
IC LoRAs do NOT add extra tokens to the transformer input. They:
1. Use the same 128-channel latent input
2. Add "guiding latents" via additive blending during denoising
3. Modify transformer weights via LoRA to make the model follow spatial control
I2V also doesn't add extra tokens - it uses temporal concatenation where the conditioning frame occupies the first temporal position.
The key difference from models like CogVideoX or Stable Video Diffusion which DO use channel concatenation:
- CogVideoX I2V: 32 channels (16 video + 16 image) - dedicated I2V checkpoint
- SVD: 8 channels (4 video + 4 image) - I2V-only model
- LTX-2: 128 channels for everything - unified model
---
8. Tensor Shape Evidence
From rp.load_safetensors inspection:
# Base model input layer
'model.diffusion_model.patchify_proj.weight': [4096, 128] # <- 128 input channels
'model.diffusion_model.patchify_proj.bias': [4096]
# IC LoRAs contain ONLY these patterns (no patchify mods):
'diffusion_model.transformer_blocks.N.attn1.to_q.lora_A.weight': [64, 4096]
'diffusion_model.transformer_blocks.N.attn1.to_q.lora_B.weight': [4096, 64]
# ... (attention and FF layers only)
---
Summary Answer to Your Questions
1. Does I2V use channel concatenation? → NO, LTX-2 uses latent replacement (temporal concat)
2. How many channels does T2V take? → 128 latent channels (from 3 RGB via VAE)
3. Same parameters between I2V and T2V? → YES, identical - same checkpoint
4. IC needs extra tokens? → NO, IC uses additive guiding latents + LoRA weight mods, not extra input tokens
5. Tensor shape differences? → NONE in input layers. IC LoRAs only modify transformer blocks, not patchify_proj
TALKING MODE ACTIVE - Ready for follow-up questions.
✻ Brewed for 17m 36s
● Background command "python3 << 'EOF'
import safetensors.torch
import json
ic_models = [
"ltx-2-19b-ic-lora-canny-control.safetensors",
"ltx-2-19b-ic-lora-depth-control.safetensors",
"ltx-2-19b-ic-lora-pose-control.safetensors",
"ltx-2-19b-ic-lora-detailer.safetensors"
]
print("IC LoRA Checkpoint Analysis")
print("=" * 80)
for checkpoint_name in ic_models:
try:
state = safetensors.torch.load_file(checkpoint_name)
print(f"\n{checkpoint_name}")
print(f" Size: ~{len(state)} parameter tensors")
# Group by layer type
groups = {}
for key in state.keys():
# Extract the layer type
if "attn1" in key:
layer_type = "Self-Attention (attn1)"
elif "attn2" in key:
layer_type = "Cross-Attention (attn2)"
elif "ff" in key:
layer_type = "Feed-Forward (ff)"
else:
layer_type = "Other"
if layer_type not in groups:
groups[layer_type] = 0
groups[layer_type] += 1
print(f" LoRA Layers by Type:")
for ltype, count in sorted(groups.items()):
print(f" - {ltype}: {count} adapters")
# Check LoRA rank
for key in list(state.keys())[:5]:
tensor = state[key]
if "lora_A" in key:
print(f" LoRA Rank (sample): {tensor.shape[0]}")
break
except Exception as e:
print(f" Error: {e}")
print("\n" + "=" * 80)
print("Key Observations:")
print(" 1. IC LoRAs are standard LoRA adapters - NOT separate IC-specific modules")
print(" 2. They apply LoRA to transformer attention and feed-forward layers")
print(" 3. The conditioning happens at pipeline level (guiding_latents)")
print(" 4. Input conditioning signal encoded same way as base video (128 channels)")
EOF
" completed (exit code 0)
● TALKING MODE ACTIVE
I've delivered the full research report above. The background tasks have all completed and confirmed the findings.
The key takeaways:
- LTX-2 uses 128 latent channels for ALL models (no channel concatenation)
- I2V = latent replacement (same checkpoint as T2V)
- IC LoRAs = additive guiding latents + transformer weight modifications (no extra input tokens)
Let me know if you have follow-up questions or want me to dig deeper into any specific aspect.
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