[edit] got it. the section of the manual about rotoscope and such didn't mention that you need to have overlays turned on. i think it was in the view menu. (not in front of motion right now.)[/edit]

we have an old version of final cut studio and are using fcp 5 still for reasons i won't bother going in to now. we rarely use anything but final cut but have just come up with a need for motion. the version of motion we have is 2.

what we're trying to do is roto a gmatte and are having trouble animating its points. the manual simply says we should be able to do so but, when we follow the instructions, the matte closes off and the points all disappear, leaving us unable to see any points in order to animate them. what have we missed here?

we're able to draw the mask. in doing so, we see a red outline of its perimeter. so far so good. according to the manual, we just draw the mask, then activate the record button and move to a place we want to change the points. the problem arises, though, when we click the final point of the mask. (this is before activating the record button or moving to the first animation point.) in doing so, it causes the mask to close off and all of the outline and points to disappear. the mask becomes active and we can't seem to get at any points to edit.

this is, undoubtedly, user error of some kind. can anyone remember back to motion 2 to help us out here?

thanks for any info,
BabaG