Have you looked at fluidos, if you parent something to it, it is supposed to react. I have never used Cinema4D, know its name, but that's about it.This is not yet possible in DS for water to interact with models the way you want, my dream too , I love how it works in Cinema4D
Those extra detail options would be fantastic, seaweed, ice...I am thinking about new model , so it can take advantage of the subdivision , the deformers would need to be modeled as well as all other effects
and more detailed textures for the fine details on top of the water , like seaweeds or foam , or ice ..
If you're saying that adding the geometry to improve detail would be very problematic using your gear, there's no doubt it would be for mine. I'm using a 2015 macbook pro 13" with 3.1 i7, 16GB - when I can get to the point of it being in the budget I'd like to upgrade to a maxed out new macbook pro, and of course I'd love to have a maxed out mac pro, but either of those are some ways off. I've already pushed my machine further than I should by making the HMS Victory more suitable for closeup, on deck shots. Did this by adding hundreds of individual props, and it made things so slow I'm surprised it didn't crash. I cringe to think what will happen when addimg multiple characters - will probably need to pose them on the base model and render with a transparent background.