ABSTRACT
The fact that A* paths can be long and unrealistic looking is well known in the video game community [Rabin 00]. The paths found by A* on eight-neighbor square grids can be approximately 8% longer than the shortest paths in the continuous environment [Nash 12]. The typical solution to this problem is to use a postprocessing technique to shorten the A* paths. One such technique is to remove vertices from the path, such that they look like rubber bands around obstacles (A* PS). This technique shortens paths such that all of the heading changes on the path hug a blocked cell.
