Yaw is a change in heading: a left-or-right turn around the up axis of a chosen reference frame. Which coordinate axis represents that turn depends on the convention being used.
Turn to face another direction
Stand in one place and turn to look left or right. Your heading changes even though you have not walked sideways. That is the idea behind yaw. For a digital sculpture, yaw can turn its front towards a visitor while leaving its position unchanged. The animation uses a top view: the central point stays fixed and the arrow shows the changing heading.
The letter Y is not the definition
In a Y-up coordinate system, an upright object can yaw around Y. In a Z-up convention, the corresponding up axis is Z. The name describes the kind of rotation, not a universal axis label. The chosen coordinate system and whether the rotation uses local or world axes both matter. If the object has already tilted, turning around its local up direction is not necessarily the same as turning around the room’s vertical direction.
Yaw, pitch and roll belong together
Yaw turns the heading, pitch tilts the front up or down, and roll tilts the object around its forward direction. These are the three rotational parts of six degrees of freedom; the other three describe translation. Combining rotations requires a convention and an order. Different sequences can end in different orientations, so three angle values without that context may be ambiguous. A yaw angle also does not automatically mean a compass bearing or true north.
Use it to describe the intended result
For an AR exhibition, “turn the sculpture to face the entrance” is a useful creative instruction. When preparing that asset for Painta, check the model’s front, its up direction and the pivot point used by the turn. If it travels around the room instead of turning in place, inspect the pivot and parent relationship. If it tips onto its side, check the axis convention. This vocabulary makes an orientation problem easier to explain without guessing which numeric field caused it.