Max 9 .dds File Format Support

I don't make requests too often, and I have to confess that I am not too keen when it comes to recompiling plugins.

I was toying with an art asset earlier today and I tried to load up a .dds file. I was rather surprised when I got an "Invalid file type" error. Alas the .bmi folder is nowhere to be seen in the stdplugs folder.

It's my understanding that .dds support was included in Max 8, but apparently Autodesk didn't feel like updating the plugin for Max 9 support. It's a massive blow to any realtime DirectX functionality and a major bummer for any game artist.

I was wondering if anyone has heard of someone who's working on a .dds update, or perhaps someone here would like to try their hand at it. The Nvidia source is packaged with the old plugin installer which can be found here-

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/...ds_plugins.html

Many thanks