Blender 4.2 and newer. It is tested on Blender 4.2, 4.5 and 5.2 LTS.

No. The ocean and foam move with a Geometry Nodes modifier that reads the scene time, so the animation plays as soon as you press Play and renders on any frame.

Yes. The ground, rocks, pebbles and grass are plain meshes with UVs and photo textures. Wet sand and rock areas are stored in a vertex color mask that game engine shaders can read. Apply the Waves modifier to export a frozen ocean surface.

The waves use real ocean physics (dispersion, shoaling, refraction, breaking when the wave height reaches about 0.78 of the water depth, swash and backwash) evaluated in Geometry Nodes. Spray and mist are launched where wave crests reach rocks, cliffs and sea stacks and fly on ballistic paths with air drag. All of it plays live and loops, with no baking.

The mist is many soft transparent puffs. Raise Render Properties > Light Paths > Max Bounces > Transparent to 64 or more so Cycles can see through all of them.