Indeed they override values, yet they are not the Softimage Overrides we are used to and it is an extremely hard thing to describe so I may fail.
In Softimage Overrides are properties to be attached to the object, not a scene level status. This means I can use them just of one object and encapsulate it on a external model.
Imagine you could do an override that can be stored in your HDA… which is one of the reasons in order to achieve similar results we have to attack each individual case in a different fashion.
I have seen attribute propagation, shader overrides, object switching, object merging (described here) and takes along with even more convoluted ways to get the result, possible certainly and probably even more powerful but seems the core concept should be architected in a different manner.
It does not help either in Houdini the fragmentation of interface tools, specially now that we have the Data Tree I feel that is the right place to incorporate such a concept and some form of consolidation of these various interfaces would be welcome.
I guess my limited view makes me thing on those terms but this is one of the key areas Softimage got really right and it is worth studying it more.
Lots of philosophical questions too from it.
:-)
owlYzarc
Well, my take (pun intended) on this would be that takes as you've said are overrides and they should be used like ones. While in certain cases you definitely can override whole material (i.e. rgb mates).
I'd rather brake object into separate discreet objects, assign materials in object level, and use overrides for some parameters.
But as you've said - it all depends on the case.