Why, oh why, big black mass?

i’m working on blender 2.79 (cycles), and i’m using planes to give the illusion of water (since i don’t know how to do a water system). i’ve done this before with fire and have not run into this problem. so here it is:


so my guess is is that the blackness is part of the plane in the back, but i don’t understand why it’s appearing like that. i turned shadows off. it has been some time since i did a bigger project like this, so i nearly had to teach myself cycles all over again. how do i fix this?

addendum: please don’t tell me to upgrade to the newest version of blender, i have anxiety when it comes to big changes, and i’m just not ready yet. i have to get there at my own pace.

Before when you did this were the planes overlapping? I think that might be causing it.

i don’t think so, i’ll have to check and get back to you

What are your transparency bounces set to? They might be too low

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If I can remember…I think there is a feature in your version for cast transparent shadows…maybe try that

Increase number of transparent bounces.

you were right, i didn’t even realize. thanks for your help.

Really? I thought the transparent bounces seemed more likely. Glad you got it sorted out.

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