After many hours of searching the forums and googling the net I found nothing to answer which I believe to be simple question so I thought I post this here.

I downloaded Skyrim HD and Realistic Texture Overhaul and extracted both to two separate directories ( of course keeping backup of the original archives) and inspected the .dds textures files with an appropriate DDS viewer of my choice.

I'm initially going to use Skyrim HD Landscapes for my working directory template of which most of this mod I like most of the texture images. However there are specific files I want to use from Realistic Texture Overhaul. Obviously this is simple process of inspecting and comparing and then copying over the appropriate files I want. and then either load into \data\textures or repackage as an archive and install via WB.

Whilst going through the selection processes I noticed that one or both of the mods have secondary or tertiary files i.e "XName01.dds, XName02.dds XName03.dds". This is fine where I make a choice to keep one or the other. However the question lies can I simply rename either one of the files e.g. if I like \RTO\xname01.dds and \SkyrimHD\xname.01.dds, xname02.dds and xname03.dds of which already exist..... can I rename then rename the file in \RTO\xname01.dds to xname04.dds etc.... ( along with the appropriate .ndds of course).

So above is my dilemma. As there are no .esp plugin associated with either mod and knowingly from experience anything the texture folder has " loose files" wins over .bsa. So my second question is how does Skyrim treat or know how to load the additional renamed files if it loads them at all.

I've searched in CK whilst the relevant files was apparent in the Skyrim\data\textures folder but could not find any listed significance that 100% identical to the file names.