- AO energy slider to control amount - option "Use sky color" for colored AO. The horizon color will define bottom diffuse color, the zenith works on top - option "Use sky texture" will do a full sky render to define AO color Please note that AO energy and color only is found when a ray does not intersect. So for interior scenes make sure 'Dist' value is sufficient low. New also is: - World "Map input" allows "Ang Map" (Angular mapping) which can be used for 360 degree spherical maps, aka as Light Probes. Check samples here: http://www.debevec.org/Probes/ Note that Blender doesn't support HDRI images yet, but option "Use sky tex" already gives intersting results with such images - World sky rendering with Image Textures now correctly filters and uses antialiasing. Also noticable for raytrace mirror reflections - World preview render for sky type "Real" now gives correct view as defined by current used camera. I tried to speed up AO tracing with coherence systems, none of it really worked yet... time to tackle octree itself i guess!