Starting to Animate - FIRST LIGHT!

Now that we are about to move into the actual animation of the hand. WHICH IS GOING TO BE CRAZY, I figured I'd give one last pitch about lighting your chess board. I personally think it is a great addition, and if for some reason you have decided you like the generic lighting, maybe think again. My board looks ten times better, and I didn't change anything at all but the lighting. I just followed the lighting tutorial that Arturo gave us and voila. It is simply a dome, (that you then put the alpha rays down so it can't be seen) and a plane. I added a material to the plane surface to add to the texture of the scene. And then it is a spot light over the chess board to create the shadows you want. This is trickier, so play around with which kind of shadow looks best for your material. Because my color scheme is dark already and reflective itself it was easier to work with light, so other materials may find it to be more challenging. BUT again it is totally worth it. Good luck!

Happy Animating.