Weird Water Caustics

Can anyone explain what is causing the splotchy “cotton-candy” looking artifacts on the water surface?

Why can’t I get water caustics without them appearing in the final render?


Here is the water material settings.

And here is a render at 11% done, with an environment with NO clouds, and the hazy spotty artifacts are starting to appear…again!

Ugh!

Any ideas?

Hello Greg, can you please send us the file? Also, why do you have the “Emission Power” set to 0.75? (it should be 0 for water.

To send the file, first write a message to our customer support:

Hello Nicola,

Where do upload the .frp file to?

There seems to be no way to do that when I sent the message to Customer Support, as you requested.

Please advise, thanks.

I believe the emission power was never touched and was set that way as the default to the water material.

Also, where would someone get a better understanding of what all the material parameters and sliders do or how they affect the outcome of the material render?

Is that just trial and error and a lot of Google searches?

here is the same file with the water material hidden. I was wondering if the stainless steel finish of the pool shell was causing it, but it seems fine.

So it must be a reflection or artifact in the water surface when rendered.

Hello Greg, you will contacted by the customer support. Did you also try reducing further the “Normal” parameter?
As for the material parameter, you can check the following information:

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/shader_nodes/shader/principled.html