Now owned by Autodesk and formerly titled Softimage XSI (stylized as Softimage|XSI), the software has been predominantly used in the film, video game, and advertising industries for creating computer generated characters, objects, and environments.

On March 4, 2014, it was announced that Autodesk Softimage would be discontinued after the release of the 2015 version, providing product support until April 30, 2016.

Control rigs are created using bones with automatic IK, constraints and specialized solvers like spine or tail.

In addition to the node-based ICE platform described below, Softimage has an extensive API and scripting environment that can be used to extend the software.

ICE is a visual programming platform that allows users to extend the capabilities of Softimage quickly and intuitively using a node-based dataflow diagram.

It can also be used to control scene attributes without the need to write expressions, for example to add camera wiggle or make a light pulsate.

ICE is a parallel processing engine that takes advantage of multi-core CPUs, giving users highly scalable performance.

In a practical scenario, one would collapse the graph into a compound and expose important parameters, for instance the deformation intensity.

The graph-based approach of ICE allows for the creation of effects previously attainable only through the use of scripting and/or compiled code.

Examples of films and other media made with the help of Softimage are Jurassic Park,[6] Thor,[7] Predators,[8] District 9,[9] White House Down,[10] Yakuza,[11] and Elysium.