Hello David. As far as I know you cannot animate terrains in Carrara unless you convert them to a vertex object. You can animate a simple plane, (not infinite) with an AVI or QT file in the displacement channel in a shader however. I have had good success in animating terrains from the top view using an altitude mask render in Bryce and exporting the greyscale animation as an AVI to use in Carrara. I've made small rivers and streams this way and I think it  should also work for animated seas. As far as realistic ocean water shaders be sure and check out this recent post. Patrick210 gives a very nice recipe for ocean water and a very helpful tut for simulating ocean waves with a terrain. HTH, Dan

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2660110