Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Every Material Known to Man/Water

Water

Here is a nice water texture setting I've used for a couple of renders. It may or may not be transparent enough for many uses, but play around with the "alpha" setting until you've achieved the effect of your desire.

Water: Click to enlarge

Material

Options found in 'Material' Window Tab
Color: R .653, G .780, B .954
Alpha: .62

Options found in 'Links and Pipeline' Window Tab
ZTransp: enabled (this is very important)

Options found in 'Shaders' Window Tab
Specular shader: Blinn Specularity: .651
Hardness: 29
Refraction: 4.521

Options found in 'Mirror Transp' Window Tab
Ray Mirror: enabled
Ray Mir (slider): .5

Texture

Options found in 'Texture' and 'Stucci' Window Tabs
Texture Type: Stucci
Plastic: enabled
Hard Noise: enabled
Noise Size: .236
Turbulence: 28.4

Options found in 'Color' Window Tab
Right Side Color: R 0, G 1, B 1
Right Side Alpha: 0
Left Side Color: R .504, G .757, B .889
Left Side Alpha: .715

Options found in 'Map To' Window Tab
Nor: enabled (white letters)
Nor (slider): 9.22

Oil

Here's an oil material. Simple enough.

Oil: Click to enlarge

Material

Options found in 'Material' Window Tab
Color: Black (R,G,B all = 0)

Options found in 'Shaders' Window Tab
Reflectivity: .872
Specularity (Blinn): 1.512
Hardness (Blinn): 50
Refraction: 3.089

Options found in 'Mirror Transp' Window Tab
RayMir: enabled, .12

Options found in 'Map To' Window Tab
Nor: enabled (inverted, text is yellow), 8.18

Texture

Options found in 'Texture' and 'Cloud' Window Tabs
Texture Type: Clouds
Color: enabled
Noise Type: soft noise
Noise Size: .366
Noise Depth: 3
Nabla: .034

Options found in 'Color' Window Tab
Right Side color Bar: R, G, B all are .2
Bright: 1.029

Water (sea, lake, river, etc.)

Here's a material for water, but use it for creating large water surfaces (sea, lake, river, etc.)

Material

Shading(F5)-->Material buttons-->Material

Color(Col):
R 0.653
G 0.780
B 0.954
Alpha 0.620

Shading(F5)-->Material buttons-->Shaders

Ref 4.521
Spec 0.650
Hard: 29

Shading(F5)-->Material buttons-->Mirror Transp

Ray Mirror ON
RayMir 0.50

Texture

Shading(F5)-->Texture buttons(F6)-->Texture

Press "Add New"
Texture Type: Stucci

Shading(F5)-->Texture buttons(F6)-->Stucci

Press "Plastic"
Press "Hard Noise"
Noise size 0.036 (2)
Turbulence 28.40

Back to Material

Shading(F5)-->Material buttons-->Map To

Col ON
Nor ON

R 0.504
G 0.757
B 0.889

Col 0.715
Nor 0.50 (1)

Tips:
- If you need bigger waves on surface rise the "Nor"(1) value
- If you have smaller surfaces rise the "NoiseSize"(2) value
- Use sun for light