I cant help much with the Hap stuff, but
Depending what characters you saw, they are probably MSAgent style ones.
In my opinion, there are almost no good 3d characters,
Cynthia 3.0 is ok, and I like some of these
http://www.guile3d.com.br/agents_page.aspBut there are alot of sites with links to characters of all kinds.
Look for listings of online bots as well, if they use Haptek characters you can sometimes, "barrow them", from your Haptek Temp File.
I have played with Poser, Daz3d, 3DSmax, FaceGen, CrazyTalk, Iclone, PuttyPeople, FaceShop, And who knows what else.
I just have never found a way to convert and use anything with Hal that looked even half way human/living. Some of the characters, if not most, look like real bad halloween masks.
Using a 3d character and trying to write a full MSAgent file would take a year.
This is all something else that i hope is added to future Hals.
This new ogre engine might help, but i didnt see much thrilling from that yet.