Credits & sources.

The guardian lions

Stone lion by DailyArt (D.art)CC BY-NC 4.0

Used for the two guardians in Yellow Maple Valley and in the valley preview image on the atlas. Adaptations: mirroring, uniform scale and coordinate normalization, separate body and pedestal nodes, a lighter neutral stone material, increased roughness, and Meshopt/WebP compression. The sculpted form and carving normal maps are retained.

Attribution and noncommercial terms apply to this model and its adaptations.

The courtyard maples

Autumn maple tree by Dr. CarrrvenBlenderKit Royalty Free

Adapted with curved trunks, revised leaf sizes and clusters, courtyard pruning, bark UVs and PBR textures, autumn colors, wind animation, and Meshopt/WebP compression. Used as part of this environment; the asset is not CC0.

Materials, rocks & sky

From Poly HavenCC0

• pavement_01 — stone paving
• brown_planks_04 — timber
• clay_roof_tiles — roof tile detail
• cliff_side — cliff surfaces
• rock_face_02 — scanned rock geometry
• bark_brown_02 — maple bark
• autumn_field_puresky — HDR environment

Adaptations include UV scale, color and roughness adjustments, texture compression, rock placement and scaling, and environment rotation and exposure.

The Tai Nan fir woodland

Fir Tree 01 by Rob Tuytel and Rico Cilliers, Poly HavenCC0

Three LOD2 tree variants retain their original atlas UVs and PBR materials. Adaptations include root normalization, placement and uniform scaling, foliage alpha tuning, simplified trees instanced in the background, and Meshopt/WebP compression. The editable source remains in the local project.

Forrest Ground 03 by Rob Tuytel, Poly Haven — CC0 woodland soil. The original color, OpenGL normal and roughness maps were resized and compressed to WebP; UV scale and shading were adjusted for the terrain.

Tai Nan's pagoda, market stalls, shops, tents and goods were modeled for this project. Their timber, canvas, paper and pottery surfaces use original procedural textures. Visible forms follow animation references; distances, unseen sides and connecting terrain are interpretations.

Yan Clan Stronghold

The current stronghold contains terraced streets, inn galleries, a separate upper bridge and the inner gate. Buildings, paving, joinery, lamps and supporting walls were modeled for this project. Timber, tile, masonry, plaster and paper use project-created procedural textures, packed into Meshopt/WebP models.

Visible forms were studied from animation references. Hidden wall depths, footings, unobserved connections and scene scale are interpretations. The current R13 scene does not load the guardian lions, palm trees or scanned cliff landscape used in the earlier R7 study.

Qixuan Sect & Divine Hand Valley

The sect courtyard and Divine Hand Valley are two separately explored areas. Their gate, halls, cottages, bridges, steps and props were modeled for this project with project-created surface textures. Bamboo, ferns, cliffside branches, leaves, water and mist are generated geometry or shaders; no animation frames are used as terrain or water textures.

The approach conifers reuse Fir Tree 01 by Rob Tuytel and Rico Cilliers. Forest soil reuses Forrest Ground 03 by Rob Tuytel; rock surfaces use Cliff Side, and embedded rock relief derives from Rock Face 02. These Poly Haven sources are CC0 and are linked above. Adaptations include mesh simplification, placement, UV scale, color and normal adjustments, texture resizing and compression.

Rock and building silhouettes follow visible references; hidden depths, distant peaks and the relationship between the two areas remain interpretations.

Heavenly Star City

The water-gate harbor, central boulevard and canal galleries are three separately explored areas. Their buildings, bridges, boats, market canopies, counters and supporting masonry were modeled for this project. Timber, stone, tile, cloth and paper use project-created procedural materials; water, sky and the blue gate barrier use generated geometry and shaders.

Autumn maple tree by Dr. Carrrven — used for the five street trees.BlenderKit Royalty Free

The tree model is not CC0. Adaptations include crown dimensions, rotation, placement, leaf colors and the previously credited bark/material changes, with Meshopt/WebP compression. Bark Brown 02 supplies the credited CC0 bark texture; that texture's license does not change the tree model's license.

Cliffs reuse the credited Poly Haven Cliff Side texture and Rock Face 02 scan under CC0. Rock Face 02 also supplies the color projection used on the continuous city rock volumes. Adaptations include mesh simplification, closed supporting geometry, UV projection, color adjustment and texture compression. Visible forms are reference-based; hidden sides, foundations and distances between the three areas remain interpretations.

Worldbuilding & references

The Tiannan atlas follows a supplied illustrated map. Coastlines, territories, rivers and mountains were transcribed into editable data; fine cartographic strokes were traced from the illustration after masking its lettering. Terrain heights and paper washes are procedural artistic interpretations. The reference illustration’s authorship and redistribution permission have not been independently confirmed. Its original image is not included on this site.

Valley architecture, paving, decorative geometry, weather, the flying sword and interface were created for this project using the novel and animation as references. The site contains no extracted animation frames or soundtrack. The map’s valley thumbnail is a render of this 3D scene and includes the credited assets above.

Yellow Maple Valley is placed in the Taiyue Mountains of Jianzhou, Yue, following the novel. Its exact map coordinate is schematic.

Runtime software

The interactive scenes use Three.js and the meshoptimizer decoder. Their complete MIT license notices are provided here.