worked at a tire shop for 5 years and gta 6's car details are blowing my mind

So I spent about five years combined working at quick lube and tire shops, and ever since then I've had this habit of checking out cars in video games way too closely. Flipping them over to look at the undercarriage, opening the hood if the game lets me, or just smashing the hood off to see what's underneath. Most games don't care. It's a box with wheels and maybe a flat texture on the bottom. The engine bay is some generic block with a couple of reservoirs if you're lucky.

Then I saw those GTA 6 screenshots. There's a mechanic changing oil on a car, and the splash shield is hanging down so he can get to the drain plug. That's exactly how it works in real life. I don't think I've ever seen a game model that correctly. And it got me thinking about customization. If Rockstar is paying attention to that level of detail for an NPC animation, what happens when we actually modify our own cars? I'm hoping that when you swap a standard air filter for a cold air intake, you'll physically see the new part under the hood. Not just a stat change. A real 3D model that swaps out.

The NPC stuff too. In most games an NPC eating just moves a fork near their face and the food never disappears. Rockstar has always been better at this. RDR2 had people actually cutting steaks and hammering railroad spikes. So when I see that mechanic with the splash shield, or the guy by the tire in another shot, I'm imagining loitering around a garage and watching someone loosen lug nuts, jack the car up, pull the wheel off, take it to a machine, change the tire, balance it, put it back on, and torque the lugs down. That would be technically impressive but also just really satisfying to watch. I know most people won't care about the actual work being done, but I hope it's there.

And the interiors. The official images show a 1995 Grotti Cheetah and a 1967 Vapid Dominator with interiors that look like they were modeled off the real cars. Not just a generic dash slapped into every sports car. If every vehicle in the game gets that treatment, I'm going to spend my first day just walking around parking lots and staring at interiors. Day one for me is going to be a lot of crouching next to cars and zooming in on door panels.

What's the first car you're going to steal just to pop the hood and check the engine bay?

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Source: r/GTA6 · Curated content.