Pouring coffee
The prompt “Coffee being poured into a clear glass cup in slow motion, steam rising, backlit”
Continuous fluid stream, transparency, refraction and steam. The benchmark shot for physics.
- Models tested
- 16
- Top score
- 5.00 7 models tied
- Average
- 4.69
- Lowest
- 3.33 OpenAI Sora 2
Every model, same prompt
The clips on screen play together from the first frame, muted. Open one for sound, controls and our notes.
FLUX 3
Black Forest LabsContinuous slow-motion pour, the level rises plausibly and backlit steam rises throughout.
MiniMax H3
MiniMaxCorrect low-viscosity stream, turbulence and steam, no artifacts.
MiniMax Hailuo 02
MiniMaxAccurate stream breakup, refraction and steam dispersal, no artifacts.
Google Veo 3.1
GoogleAccurate turbulence, crema forms with correct surface tension, no gel artifacts.
Seedance 2.5
ByteDanceContinuous pour with plausible refraction and rising steam.
Seedance 2.0
ByteDanceContinuous pour with plausible refraction and steam, no looping artifacts.
Grok Video
xAIAccurate turbulence, foam and steam, no artifacts.
Google Gemini Omni
Google
Vivix W1
VivixContinuous pour into clear glass with a level that rises plausibly and backlit steam. Cuts to a second angle at about 3.5 seconds, which the prompt did not ask for.
Wan 3.0
AlibabaContinuous slow-motion pour into clear glass, with the level rising and backlit steam, in one take.
Kling 3.0 Turbo
Kuaishou
Kling 4.0
KuaishouContinuous pour with a rising level and backlit steam, shown as three shots (side, top-down, steam) rather than one take. Cuts measured with ffmpeg.
Kling 3.0
KuaishouAccurate low-viscosity turbulence and foam; no gel artifacts (better physics than Sora on this one).
PixVerse v5.5
PixVersePour stream is oddly clean with almost no splash turbulence or droplets against the glass wall.
Runway Gen-4.5
RunwayPour stream thins and disappears from frame with no pouring vessel ever shown (common product-shot framing, not a strong defect) and surface bubbles look somewhat static. Verified via frames: stream absence at end is real but mild, treated as minor rather than severe.
OpenAI Sora 2
OpenAIFAILURE MODE: coffee inside the cup forms unnatural gel-like ribbed layers instead of turbulent mixing (00:02.5-00:07.0), despite a good initial pour stream.
Ranked by our blind vision-model judge; models with the same score share a position. Read how we test.