In Softimage, all shape animation is done on point clusters. This means that you can create different clusters on an object and create shape keys for each of them, or you can treat a complete object as one cluster and store shape keys for it (see Choosing the Cluster for the Shape Keys).

You can use surface (NURBS) or polygon objects to create shape animation, or even curves, ICE particles, and lattices — any geometry that has a static number of points.

You can create shape keys from any kind of deformation to produce shape animation. For example, you can store shape keys for clusters on an object by moving points or deforming by spline, such as for facial animation and lip-syncing. Or you can create a shape key for an overall deformation of an object using envelopes, lattices, quick stretch, or weight maps. For more information on deformations in general, see Deformations [Modeling and Deformation Basics].

After you've created your shape keys, you can animate how the shapes are weighted against each other. Softimage uses the animation mixer under the hood to blend the shapes. The mixer is a powerful tool that gives you a high degree of flexibility in creating and reworking your shape animation.

However, you can also use other tools and methods to do your work with shape animation. For more information on these techniques and tools, see Overview of Shape Animation Tools and Methods.