Shape animation (sometimes called morphing, blend shapes, or endomorph), is the process of deforming an object over time. To do this, you animate the geometrical shape (deformation) of an object using clusters of points and take "snapshots" (shape keys) of the object in different poses, then you blend these poses to animate them.

Softimage offers a number of different tools you can use to create shape animation so that you can work in any way that you feel comfortable.