Somebody else to also pick up a copy of the latest Empire magazine has scanned perhaps the most interesting image from the entire publication and, via the magic of photoshop, given us an absolutely incredible look into not the set, but the actual world of James Cameron’s Avatar.

As well as showing you the image, I’ll also have to explain to you just how come we’re getting to see it.

So, before I post the picture, some context. All officially released Avatar images have so far been on-set snaps, showing James Cameron with cameras, computer gear and lots and lots of green. There’s one picture in Empire, though, that shows a monitor, and on that monitor’s screen, a real-time CG rendering of a shot. This is how Cameron is working - he’s having on-the-fly versions of imagery created so that he can look at his screen and get a very strong idea of what his composition will look like in the completed movie.

With a little perspective alteration, the screen image has been reformatted to appear front-on, as Cameron would see it on his monitor. Here it is:

To my eye, the stylings are similar to Cameron’s own Aliens. I guess that’s no real surprise, and its definitely not a bad thing. I could speculate as to exactly what we are seeing here, but I think you’d probably do a better job with those guesses yourself and I look forward to reading your comments.

Marketsaw posted the image (it was scanned by one of their readers) along with some of the remaining on-set ones. As I did in my recent Lovely Bones post, Marketsaw are encouraging you to pick up a copy of the magazine for yourself by not including every image, nor every piece of information. The interview with Cameron inside the magazine is a good one, and well worth any fan’s time.

Sadly, it doesn’t look like an Avatar trailer is going to premiere any time soon, with the rumours of its appearance before Wolverine now being denied. Each of these new reveals could be tiding me over, but instead they’re just making me more hungry.