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Use a PhongE shader to produce glossy surfaces. PhongE is perfect for creating plastics, or the kinds of polymers used to create bathroom and car mouldings.

Aside from the attributes described here, the PhongE shader inherits many attributes from its parents Reflect and Lambert. Maya also has a Phong shader, which is very similar, and can be used to make the same kinds of materials. The difference is mostly a matter of personal preference. Other kinds of shaders you can use:
For unpolished surfaces, like chalk or matte paint, use a Lambert shader. For metallic surfaces, such as brass or aluminum, use a Blinn shader. For microgrooved surfaces like CDs, brushed metal, or hair, use an Anisotropic shader.
In the table below, important attribute have their names indicated in bold in the description column.

This node is MP safe

Node name Parents Classification MFn type Compatible function sets
phongE reflect shader/surface:drawdb/shader/surface/phongE kPhongExplorer kBase
kNamedObject
kDependencyNode
kLambert
kReflect
kPhongExplorer

Related nodes

lambert, reflect, phong, blinn, anisotropic, volumeShader, simpleVolumeShader, surfaceShader, displacementShader, layeredShader, useBackground, defaultShaderList, shadingMap

Attributes (6)

highlightSize, roughness, whiteness, whitenessB, whitenessG, whitenessR

Long name (short name) Type Default Flags
roughness (rn) float 0.5 outputinputconnectablestorablekeyable
Roughness controls how fast the brightness of a highlight decreases from the center of the highlight area to its edge This value ranges from 0 to 1. Low values make the highlight die away quickly, giving the material a more polished look. Higher values make the whole highlight region brighter, making the material appear rougher.
highlightSize (hls) float 0.5 outputinputconnectablestorable
Highlight Size controls how big the total highlight area is.
whiteness (wn) float3 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 outputinputconnectablestorable
Use Whiteness to blend the color of the highlight between the base color of the material and white. As this color becomes brighter, the highlight becomes more white. As this gets darker, the highlight color gets closer to the base color of the material. Tip: To make your material look more plastic, make this brighter. To make it look more metallic, make this darker.
whitenessR (wnr) float 0.0 outputinputconnectablestorablekeyable
whiteness red value
whitenessG (wng) float 0.0 outputinputconnectablestorablekeyable
whiteness green value
whitenessB (wnb) float 0.0 outputinputconnectablestorablekeyable
whiteness blue value