I created a model in Blender and posed it the way I want it to look. The character will never move and no animations will ever change.
I exported the character with animations to an FBX and imported it into Unity 3D. After dropping the character into the scene, the character's pose is back to the default take.
How can I force the character to use the pose that I want? Do I have to do it in script or is there a setting that I can change to make it play the idle animation at all times?
Putting your model in the scene will not invoke idle animation, animation and rendering is two separate thing. To always play a certain animation on a model you have three option -
1. Via Legacy Animation -
Select you model in the scene, remove the default Animator component and add a new Animation component. (Animator and Animation are two different component type.) It has an option of selecting an animation clip. Drop your animation clip there and choose 'Play Automatically'.
2. Via Script -
You can add Animation component, attach multiple animation and select which one to play via script too.
You can also do this for meca-anim way which is explained in the next point.
3. Via Meca-Anime
Every model has a default Animator component. It needs an animation controller object to run. Create an animation controller (Click on create button in project view). Attach the controller to the Animator component. Double click on the controller to open Animator view. Drop your clip there and make it as default. The default animation plays automatically now. Using Meca-anime has many advantage over legacy way, which is beyond the scope of this answer. Check the following link instead -
