I have a general understanding of materials but would like a firm grasp on how to make some things that are more complex, such as a material that has movement, like water for instance. Are there any recommendations for learning the intricacies like this?

BigK1991 said:
such as a material that has movement, like water for instance.

Are you familiar with shaders? If not, shaders are smallish programs that run on the GPU, alongside the main application.

You can get started with learning shaders by going to shadertoy.com and finding shadertoy tuts on youtube.

https://www.shadertoy.com/view/wdG3Rz