The Tips in detail

 "Use a Smoke Shininess Map to Add Visual Interest."

In the Front viewport, create a ChamferCyl extended primitive with Radius = 35, Height = 100, Fillet = 0, Sides = 16.

In the Front viewport, clone the object to the right and, click OK to accept Copy in the Clone Options dialog. With the copy selected, in the Modify panel, type 1.5 in the Fillet field.

In the Perspective viewport, use ArcRotate to view the two ChamferCyl’s from the upper left and click Zoom Extents all.

In Material Editor, change the diffuse color swatch for Material #1 to a medium grey (rgb = 140,140,140). Set Shininess to 20 and Shin.Strength to 50. Drag and drop the material onto ChamferCyl01 in the scene.

In the Material Editor, drag and drop Sample Sphere 1 onto Sample Sphere 2 and rename the material to Material #2. Click the grey maps box to the right of the Shininess field and double-click Smoke in the Material/Map Browser. Enter 80 in the Size field in Smoke Parameters rollout. Drag and drop the material onto ChamferCyl02 in the scene.

Render the Perspective viewport and compare the two cylinders. On ChamferCyl02, you have added a slight chamfer to the edge to catch the light and make the cylinder stand out visually. The material for ChamferCyl02 uses a Smoke map to break up the surface of the cylinder so it isn’t as flat and consistant.

Using these concepts on as many objects as you can will greatly increase the visual interest of most scenes with very little overhead to slow production.