Some people asked about the water in my latest image. I don't want to write a tutorial, that's too much work and I don't have the time. So, here are some simple pointers to get that effect.

That effect is a combination between water material and lighting conditions. The two things must be worked out in combination to get a good result. That is not only a material effect.

I started with a perfectly normal water, any will do (mine had a mix for foam, but that's not important).

Here are the most important settings:

Transparency: 100%, 0% fading out

Translucency:
Average depth: 3.2m (this depends on the scale of your waves).
Balance: full absorption (no multiple scattering)
Color: same hue as the basic water color, with much more luminosity.
Anysotropy: 0.24
The translucency effect changes a lot with small variations in the parameters, try playing with it, it's fun.

Effects:
Color transmitted light: 50%

Lighting conditions:
This is very important to get a good result.
I used spectral, as I always do. In the atmosphere settings, the light balance should be high, for a good contrast between the dark and light areas of the waves, which enhances the effect (mine was at 80%). You should increase the sky dome lighting gain to compensate for this balance (mine was at 8.0), otherwise the shadow areas are too dark.
I used global ambience. IMO, this is what gives the best result.

If the sun is not directly behind the waves to create the effect (as in my case) you'll need a spot light just behind the waves (shadows enabled, this is important).

The rest of the settings I think are not so important.

Oh, by the way, for a fast render, you'd want to have the light quality boost in the atmosphere settings at -1 or even less (I had mine in -1.5). My render took about 5 hours. If I would have that at zero, it would take more than 20.

There are probably many ways to get that same effect and maybe even some things I described are not important for the effect. Anyway, this was my final result after tweaking these things for some time.

Have fun!

BM for when I get a chance to try it out. 

I saved the webpage, so I can refer to it when I use Vue.

Thanks for the info! 

Thank you for sharing this infos with us.

Mazak

That is most excellent water!!  Thanks for the recipe!

M

Forgot to mention: it's important that the water base color is fairly dark (blue or green, but dark).

Excellent high seas Rutra! Thanks for the tips.

For those who have not seen his image:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1729097

Be sure to view full-size.

thank you so much rutra, i was especially intrigued by the ripples in the water (in case it's a bump function..)

when i try make rough water i always end up with either too hard edges or too smooth waves.

Page saved in my tutorials folder !
Thanks a lot !