Bring in crowd from obj using SOP Crowd Import node (here it's still packed agents). Create Instanced SkelRoots is preferred I think
In the example it's %reference:/crowd/agentdefinitions/ball/shapelibrary/l_hammer
Here's the stage scene outliner thing
Assign the materials to the collection by typing in the name. Eg. %hammer
Be sure to expand the Material Binding and tick Include Descendant Primitives in Collection
You might have to change the Strength to Stronger or Weaker than Descendants too.
Just plug em in like this - just like Arnold
And ta da...attributes and collections targeting different bits of a crowd!