Shiny vinyl/pvc fabric?

any one have any tips/filters that will make the super shiny vinyl I see on some outfits?

Nice sheet metal look in the pic in your signature, Maeve. Shiny fabric is done pretty much the same way. It's all about extreme hilights and shadows with gradiants inbetween. The trick is in where to put those hilights and shadows.

I find it works best to paint as if the model were being lit from directly above. The brightest hilights would be shoulder tops, upper breasts, tops of hips on females, tops of forearms, upper bottocks, front of thighs, tops of knees, and upper calves. The darkest shadows would be the opposite sides of those same parts. Everything else should be graded.

I can't recommend any filter that will do the job reliably for this, since the clothing templates are such irregular shapes. Hand painting is the way to go here. It takes some artistry to make it convincing.

They are mostly gradients ranging from black to light grey, since we don't have real shiny on clothes.

Try and experiment with this.

http://webmaster.lycos.co.uk/topics/graphic/photoshop/photoshop-workshop21/1/
http://www.spoono.com/photoshop/tutorials/tutorial.php?id=69

Chosen gave an excellent suggestion on getting 'shine.' I also play with the dodge and burn tool a lot and then just blur. It is a tricky thing to get highlights/shadows but you will notice just changing a few pixels in the right places can do wonders