I noticed that there was a bit of concern over the creation of water/waves using Carrara (like...vs. Terragen). I quickly put together an approximation of an open ocean scene, and wonder if anyone might contribute their own creations -- an informal thing -- and how it was done.

Well, How did you that? LOL I'm assuming that was done in C5P. Looks very good by the way!

I'm impressed. Can you annimate it?

Here is one, but I like your water better. I used Wizard - reflective water... terrain for the water.

I also used the terrain with the "hill" filter, and a couple of noise layers. try playing with the size & amplitude of the noise filter(s). The light color on wave tops was noise at a narrow altitude distribution. I had a terrain noise with a altitude matching shader noise. Looks like you're getting there.

Nice..probably easier to post a cap of shader tho.

Yes LCBoliou. Please!

Having a bit of fun also.

I have never been able to make convincing ocean. In Bryce there was a terrain preset that worked pretty well but in Carrara there is nothing close.

Here is something I worked up with a hilly terrain and lots of wind erosion. For the shader I used a multichannel mixer of blue water and white foam blended with rough fractle noise. I don't really think it is very good.

I had a project that I did in Lightwave a couple of years back. Lots of water--realistic ocean water with swells. Displacement mapping is probably the best way in Lightwave. I just did a quick test in Carrara. There are a couple of ways as pointed out already. One is with terrain. A good way is with the fractal generator. Then in Assembly scale the terrain down in Z. That worked pretty good. The other way is with a plane and displacement. Use a fractal noise or turbulence in the displacement channel. Make sure you use extra subdivision in the options. The powerful thing about this method is that you can use the "transform" tab and animate the texture center easily. This will cause the texture to animate upwards, or downwards creating rolling waves that form and then collapse. I have not tested it too extensively yet in Carrara, other than a quick 120x90 movie. But it appears to work identically to Lightwave in that manner. A little tweaking and it should be very easy to create rolling waves. In Carrara displacement mapping is done at surface level as opposed to geometry level in Lightwave. But I would also point out that Carrara's way of doing it at the surface level gives more options and control. Because in Lightwave you have to use a highly subdivided mesh to start with before applying a displacement map. Carrara allows you to adjust the subdivision from within the shader itself. Wish I had more time to experiment. I have a "hot" project for a client I am working on at the moment. YAY!! I get to use Carrara. But once I finish it I would like to experiment some more and post what I have come up with.

Dont know what is up with the text formatting on that post. That picture is just a quick test using a plane and displacement mapping.

Getting better images all the time (C5Pro)

Used fractal noise displacement mapping and terrain bump in the bump channel.

Here is one I did some time ago. My original intent was to add lightening to the scene but I gave up as I was never able to get the lightening light to interact with the clouds. I think I will try again when I get C5 and see if the new volumetric clouds will respond to light. The water surface is a terrain with with a single fractal function layer. The texture is one I put together with much anguish and gnashing of teeth.

gavotte: your teeth-gnashing time was well spent! Looks great! Nice interaction with the clouds on the reflections... and a very ominous cloud layer coming in!