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# Tuning Air For Displacement + Occlusion

Here is a checklist of things to try when tuning Air for use with ambient occlusion and displacement.

- Using a high "flatness" setting can save a lot of memory - try 0.7 or 1 instead of the default of 0.5
- If motion blur is used, enable the motion factor optimization.
- Make sure the displacement bounds are as tight as possible. Displacement bounds should normally be set on the attribute that MayaMan automatically adds to all nodes that are directly connected to the 'displacementShader' of a shading group and can be found in the 'Extra Attributes' section..
- Use as small a maxhitdistance value for ambient occlusion as feasible.
- With true displacement the occlusion cache may not be very effective and may eat up a ton of memory. Try disabling it by setting the indirect:maxerror value to 0.
- If you are displacing subdivision surfaces, there is a new displacement method that can cut down on the persistent memory required during ray tracing. Again, using a high flatness value can save a ton of memory. The meshdisplacement method is also much less prone to cracks on higher flatness settings than the default displacement method. Enable mesh displacement by placing the following in the 'User Defined RIB' section on the MayaManAttributes Node that was used to turn on subdiv rendering for the mesh:`

            Attribute "render" "meshdisplacement" [1]

  `
- You'll also likely want to enable tessellation in parts by placing the following in the 'User Defined RIB' section on the MayaManAttributes Node that was used to turn on subdiv rendering for the mesh:`

            Attribute "render" "splitmesh" [1]

  `
- For far away objects true displacement may not be needed. The true displacement switch is automatically added to the displacementShader nodes by MayaMan and can be found in the 'Extra Attributes' section.
- Under Win XP 64 AIR can address up to 4 GB of memory (about 3.5 G max in practice).

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