SberAuto2025 is a CGI-driven commercial created for Sber — one of the largest technology companies in Europe.

Our challenge: integrate digital UI and car models into real-world video to present three key mobility services — auto loan, carsharing, and rental.

We completed the entire CGI production cycle in-house: from idea development to the final render.

The process began with an on-location shoot in Moscow — right on the campus of Moscow State University.

We captured multiple takes, reference photos, and HDRI environment textures.

Hand interactions were filmed separately for future UI compositing.

In total, we recorded around 50 takes during the shoot.

After the footage was approved, we moved on to camera tracking and 3D scene setup.

Using reference photos taken on set and open-source photogrammetry of the Moscow State University, we tracked the camera and reconstructed the real environment in 3D.

This allowed us to proceed with building the virtual scene and seamlessly integrate CG elements into the live-action footage.

Even before the shoot began, we prepared the car assets in advance and configured their physical behavior.

Each vehicle received a physically accurate rig with suspension that reacts properly to height drops and motion dynamics.

The inflation and teardown simulation — where the car bursts into small particles — was built in Houdini and later tested for stability inside Blender.

Thanks to this pre-production setup, we were able to move quickly through animation tasks and get solid results in minimal time.

With the 3D camera and base environment layout ready, we moved on to scene layout and early animation passes.

We explored three different versions of blocking animation — the final one was selected and approved by the client.

After that, we refined the animations, completed the foreground environment, and moved into lookdev.

Prebuilt simulations of vehicle drops were combined with hand-crafted animation for more precise control and responsiveness.

One of the key goals from the client was to showcase the phone interface with all product options.

To achieve this, we shot a separate hand take with a keyphone — under the same lighting conditions as the main plate.

Due to the intense sunlight, the preloaded UI on the phone screen was unreadable by the camera.

We improvised by placing paper tape trackers directly onto the screen — this allowed us to successfully replace it in compositing.

The phone movement was synchronized with the 3D camera and animated UI graphics during compositing.

The UI itself was designed from scratch in Sber’s visual style.

During the look development stage, we focused on refining textures and building the lighting setup.

We finalized all car textures, added Sber-branded elements, and carefully detailed imperfections across all assets.

A major part of the work also included building a fake environment around the cars — to achieve realistic reflections on vehicle geometry and accurate light refraction in semi-transparent materials.

At the compositing stage, all render passes and filmed sequences were combined into a single cohesive frame.

As mentioned earlier, the phone screen was also replaced at this stage.

To match the final color grade of the main footage, we color-corrected the hand footage and rendered elements.

Additional visual effects were added to enhance the overall look — making the image richer and helping the graphics blend naturally into the scene.

The final video shows how CGI and UI can naturally enhance live-action — creating a clean and futuristic aesthetic for Sber’s new mobility services.

This project was executed entirely in-house by Cross X Studio — from the original idea and location shoot to the final render.

Big thanks to everyone involved in making this happen.

Thanks for watching!