I'm have a horrible time with the lighting on metal objects in C3. Just cant seem to figure out. In particular no matter where I put the lights the top half of my "gold" letters are always black.....ideas?

It sounds like you need a background or a sky. If there's no background or sky, then the sky is just black, and that's what gets reflected in your metal objects. Unlike in the real world, you have to specifically put something up there to be reflected.

thanks...it works...