Originally posted by Bluethunder
Thank you all.
While I was creating that chair material... I did happen to tone up the reflectivity or specularity or something. The chair that I was modeling was slightly shiny, due to some sort of coating that was applied.
I'm wondering though.. I know I turned up the settings too much, and I attempted to fix it. However, I don't really know the difference between reflectivity, specularity, and the other settings of that sort...
the coating would probably have been varnish
reflectivity is how reflective something is. I assume everyone knows what reflectivity is since its a common everyday word. Meaning it's hard to explain :p, but basically the more reflective something is the easier it is to see other objects in what you're looking at.
Think mirrors and the aweful glossy monitors. You can see yourself in them. And since they have high reflectivity (why anyone would make monitors so f*****g reflective is beyond me, you can't work with them unless its night) you can see clearly the things the surface is facing.
specularity is related to the highlight on the material.
in the material attributes you have eccentricity, which deals with the diffuse of the highlight. That being how spread out it is... generally, the wetter the surface the smaller the specularity.
specular roll off looks like its more of how strong the highlight is
at least i think i'm right. I'll have to read up on it again sometime... i can't remember where i found the page to explain this stuff...
if i made a mistake, feel free to correct me 
that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"
Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D