Hi!
I am currently working on a duck. He´s kind of fat, so I wanted him to have softbody applied. Worked very good so it was time to make some eyelid movement. Guess what! No can do!!! I made the shapekeys for the eyelid, but when pulling the slider in object mode nothing happens. I´ve done this many times but without softbody. Is there any limitations I missed reading about?
I too have found the same thing when using soft body. Hopefully someone can confirm this with a link, but I do remember reading somewhere that in the current blender 2.45, shape keys can’t be used in conjunction with soft body deformation.
Humm … did take a look at the code and did a little test.
Shape keys are evaluated before the modifier stack is evaluated.
So the goal vertices are moved by the shape keys, however the loose soft body particles don’t react unless the simulation is running or the mesh is reset. Just enter and exit edit mode and you see the shape keys are there. So while the animation is running ( or you flip through the frames ) shape keys and soft bodies work nicely together.
Bad thing is you can’t see what happens when you pull the slider since the soft body object is not updated “live” because there is no change in time.
Well anyway i’d animate without soft bodies enabled and turn em on just before the bake.
BM
P.S. if you turn of interactive display for the soft body on the modifier stack you will see the effect of the key slider again 
Can you softbody a lattice? (I can’t remember if you can or not) but if so, you can use that to wiggle the fatness, without needing to edit the duck mesh directly.
Yes you can soft body a lattice, but then you won’t be able to paint the jiggle zones so nice.
BM
Can you define vertex groups on a lattice?
(I’m gonna have to fire up Blender and try this, I can see!)
No you can’t, but you can set weights for the vertices in floating numeric panel N_KEY in 3d view on lattice in edit mode.
And you can weight paint the effect of the lattice modifier on the mesh.
Thanx alot guys!
I´ll try that baking tips you gave me and let´s see how it turns out. Tomorrow I´ll animate the first scene that needs softbody and shape keys. I´ll let you know.
Mmmmm…
Baking Tips…
HAHAHAHAHA, you´re funny! 