SoWhen? created a virtual universe to reveal a new urban logistics brand: Flexis

A scalable, interactive, and customizable tool tailored to your needs

Designed from the outset as a structuring tool, this virtual universe supports the brand’s communications, product demonstrations and business use cases.

Context and challenges

Flexis is an emerging European brand specialized in last-mile urban logistics. Born from a joint venture between Renault Group, Volvo Group, and CMA CGM, Flexis carries a strong ambition: to rethink urban delivery through innovative electric light commercial vehicles combined with a comprehensive digital services platform.

At the time of the brand’s launch, a major challenge arose: the vehicles were not yet physically available, while Flexis already needed to present itself, convince stakeholders, and structure its message for a wide range of audiences. Traditional tools such as slide decks, static visuals, or partial mock-ups were not sufficient to express the richness and uniqueness of the offering.

The identified challenges were clear:

reveal a newly created brand and establish its image,
make a complex offer understandable, combining vehicles, services, and a digital platform,
address diverse audiences effectively (clients, prospects, partners, internal teams, media),
provide a tool usable across communication, sales, onboarding, and events.

SoWhen?’s strategic vision

At SoWhen?, real-time 3D is never considered an end in itself. It is a lever serving a clear strategy, built around real uses, business objectives, and operational constraints.

For Flexis, we chose from the outset to design a virtual universe as a structuring, long-term tool: a common foundation capable of evolving with the brand, adapting to its needs, and supporting all its forms of expression.

Rather than creating a single product demonstration, we imagined a universe centered around a concrete and universal scenario: the real-life delivery journey, from the depot to the final customer. This narrative thread becomes the gateway to understanding Flexis’ vehicles, services, uses, and vision.

A tailor-made real-time 3D virtual universe

SoWhen? designed and produced a fully custom, interactive real-time 3D virtual universe for Flexis.

This universe brings together:

Flexis products, including its range of electric light commercial vehicles,
the associated digital services and solutions,
the key contexts of urban logistics: the depot, the city, delivery routes, and the operations center,
a scripted journey enabling the offer to be understood through real-life scenarios.

The universe was conceived as an evolving platform, able to support multiple formats (interactive experiences, films, media exports) and to accommodate new use cases as the brand grows.

Putting humans at the heart of the experience

Flexis claims a deeply human-centric approach to logistics. This principle naturally became a central pillar of the virtual universe designed with SoWhen?.

To embody this vision, we chose to rely on MetaHuman, Epic Games’ technology for creating highly realistic, expressive digital humans fully usable in real-time 3D environments.

Two MetaHumans represent the brand’s key professions:

Yvette, delivery driver,
Léon, fleet manager.

These characters were created based on Flexis personas, co-developed with their marketing teams and enriched through in-depth discussions with clients. The objective was not to create idealized avatars, but professional figures that audiences could immediately recognize and relate to.

Thanks to MetaHuman Creator, initial versions of Yvette and Léon were produced quickly, then refined through successive iterations: morphology, expressions, skin tones, clothing details, and accessories. Professional outfits were custom-designed to reflect real-world use cases and industry codes.

To bring these MetaHumans to life, SoWhen? organized a markerless motion capture session at its hybrid Multivert studio. Professional gestures were performed by Flexis team members themselves and captured directly into Unreal Engine.

This approach made it possible to build, in a single day, a comprehensive library of profession-specific movements (delivery actions, driving, handling, interactions), now used both in the interactive universe and in video content.

The MetaHumans thus become more than characters: they act as powerful vectors for storytelling, pedagogy, and appropriation, firmly placing humans at the core of the Flexis experience.

Flexis vehicles, visible and understandable

Flexis vehicles play a central role in the virtual universe. Rather than focusing on a single model, the experience showcases a range of electric light commercial vehicles designed to address various urban logistics use cases.

Among them:

the STEP IN VAN, designed to optimize delivery flows and driver comfort,
as well as other vehicles in the Flexis lineup, adapted to different operational contexts and urban constraints.

To fully reveal the value of these vehicles, SoWhen? developed an advanced visualization system offering two modes:

a realistic mode,
an XRAY mode.

The XRAY view makes normally invisible technical elements visible: internal architecture, volume distribution, key components, and space optimization. It provides a clear and pedagogical way to explain design choices and functional benefits beyond surface appearance.

This system proves particularly effective for sales and co-creation with clients. In some cases, it can also replace more complex and costly physical prototyping workshops, while enabling faster and more meaningful discussions.

A fully customizable universe

One of the project’s key objectives was to allow Flexis teams to fully appropriate the virtual universe without technical dependency.

The universe can be customized in just a few clicks:

client logos applied to vehicles and delivery packages,
selection of primary and secondary brand colors,
automatic propagation across vehicles, Yvette’s outfit, and depot elements.

Customization is applied consistently throughout the entire universe, ensuring immediate and credible immersion for every client or prospect.

Deliverables produced from the virtual universe

As part of this project, SoWhen? handled the end-to-end design and production of:

a brand reveal teaser,
a product-centered interactive application,
a real-time 3D interactive journey,
a trailer film for the virtual universe,
video and visual exports for events, sales, and communication.

All these formats are built on the same asset base, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and long-term sustainability.

A business-oriented tool at scale

Today, the Flexis virtual universe is used as:

an immersive sales tool for client presentations,
a demonstration platform at international trade shows,
a projection and discussion device during showroom visits,
an onboarding tool for new employees,
a foundation for co-creation workshops and training sessions.

It represents the first layer of Flexis’ digital asset ecosystem, designed to evolve over time and to support future use cases such as serious games, immersive training, XR explorations, and advanced simulations.

Outcome

With Flexis, SoWhen? delivered far more than a virtual universe: a strategic, scalable, and human-centered tool capable of supporting a brand from its very first steps and throughout its development.

A project that fully illustrates SoWhen?’s créatech approach, at the intersection of strategy, creation, and technology.

Check out the talk given by SoWhen? and Flexis at Unreal Fest Stockholm 2025.

Experiences that combine creativity and technological innovation in the service of meaning

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