I am at wits end. I spent two days trying to figure out how to get each figure in a scene to cast its own shadow on to either the ground or area around it. I went thru step by step using the D|S pdf guide.  Changed lighting, each thing that was mentioned in the guide that had to do with shadows. 

But no luck. I could not even get a single shadow from a lone figure.

Need help as the shadows are need to make the scene look realistic

3 Questions: 
Are you rendering in 3Delight or in Open GL (Shadows won't render in Open GL)
Do you have shadows turned on for your lights?
Are the lights pointed at a downward angle toward your figures?

Using 3delight
yes
yes. I even moved them around but started with overhead lights.

Hmm...that's odd. 
Can you replicate the fault with premade lights?  (they're easy to delete once they're in your scene, just edit-delete)  I have some in my freestuff that use both raytraced and deep mapped shadows...you can try to see if they'll render for you.  (they should.  All lights have shadows turned on)  Beyond that...do you have a screenshot of your lighting settings?

Let me try your light products and see what happens

Ok.  Let me know how it goes, and if you need help, holler ;)

Well it is not the lights or even D|S . Turns out that my GC is on the way to the trash bin . I needed a new one anyway . I may go for a Nvidia 7 or 8 series

While I'm glad you've figured it out, but it sucks that it's gonna cost you money :(

Attached Link: http://digilander.libero.it/maclean/DStutorial.htm

Nice Tut

Bookmarked it