Killing three birds with one stone here:

1) I am loading up to three files (.jpg images) at a time. Have three HTML file text boxes (file1,file2,file3). PHP upload works fine, but as soon as I add a variable to the upload directory, and that directory does not exist, I get the following error:
Folder .. can not be created,
Set the permissions of the parentmap correctly
However, the permissions for the directory is 777 (can't be more open than that).

2) The file rename just does not work at all. Have set it just to the default settings, and I get an error message. Tried with both the file name only and prefix with full path settings, but it does not work at all

3) Ideally, I want to upload and renam the files as $variable-1, $variable-2 and $variable-3... but there does not seem to be a way of doing this.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you very much.

One additional Note:

The directory is created on the fly, but does not inherit the permissions of the parent directory, and I cannot add a file to this new sub-directory.