The mechanics behind this are pretty simple, but it took me a while to get everything how I liked it. The sea is a flat plane with a high polygon count, textured with both a displacement map and a bump map. The sky is just the SkyTracer, using a distant light for the sun. The displacement map, bump map, colors in the ocean, and both layers of clouds were animated using null objects as reference objects. It took me a couple of hours to make the entire scene, and the render time was 4 hours (at Medium Enhanced anti-aliasing).

Modeled and Rendered in: Lightwave 8.5