Revision as of 00:12, 3 October 2016

Roll20 features a built-in WebRTC video and voice chat feature (powered by Tokbox's OpenTok 2.0) that allows you to communicate with other players. It is enabled as the default video chat technology starting with the Rugged Reroll update. WebRTC is high-definition and runs natively in your browser without the need for any additional plugins. It's also adaptive so it works well with low-bandwidth connections.

Once at least two people are in the game using WebRTC, you should see a dialog box along the top of your screen that asks you to give permission for Roll20 to use your camera/microphone.

Note: If you aren't having much luck with the built-in video/voice chat, you might also try running your game in a Google+ Hangout, which offers an alternative way of having video/voice chat in your game. Read more...

Enabling and Disabling WebRTC Video & Voice Chat

In Google Chrome:

A dialog box will appear along the very top of your browser screen. Click "Allow." (You may only have to do this the first time you use WebRTC).

Note that you can click the little camera icon located in the far-right of your address bar to change the settings of what camera/microphone is being used.

In Mozilla Firefox:

A dialog box will appear, click on "Share Selected Devices" to allow Roll20 to start video chat (highlighted in green below). If for some reason a dialog box does not appear, or if you wish to change your settings after the game has started, click on the Camera icon (highlighted in pink below) to change your settings.

Go to the My Settings tab (the gear icon) in the Sidebar (on the top-right side of the screen). Scroll down to the bottom of the tab to find the Video + Voice heading. There will be three related drop-down menus underneath. They are:

I want to Broadcast to others: this controls whether or not you will broadcast video and voice, voice only, or nothing to other players in the game.

I want to Receive from others: this controls whether or not you will receive video and voice, voice only, or nothing from other players, if they are broadcasting at all.

Video/Player Avatar Size: This controls the size of the player avatars that are shown in the Player Zone in the bottom-left side of the screen. There are four size options available: Large (200px x 200px), Regular (150px x 150px), Small (100px x 100px) and "Names Only". If the last option is selected, the portrait image is hidden entirely and all that remains is the user's name plate. Note that if you choose "Names Only" you will still receive or send any video or voice broadcasts. You need to use the "Broadcast To Others" setting if you want to broadcast voice-only, or nothing at all.

Managing Volume

While video/voice is enabled in Roll20, hover your mouse on the bottom right corner of a player's portrait in the Player Zone. This action will pop up a volume slider that you can use to fine tune a player's mic volume to be heard properly. It's important to note that a slider exists on your own portrait and tuning your personal mic volume affects how other players in Roll20 hear you.

Switching Devices

To switch between multiple microphone and webcam devices, once again hover your mouse on the bottom right corner of your avatar in the Player Zone. Next to the volume slider that pops up is a wrench button. Clicking on this button brings up a new window where you can specify which devices you wish to use for chat.

Push-to-talk

Push-to-talk is a concept where you hold down a key to talk, and let go when you're not talking. It controls the on/off of your microphone, making it act like a "walkie-talkie".

Why you want everyone to have this:

• Lets everyone use the regular roll20 interface without installing and setting up a complex extra program like Skype, Ventrilo, Teamspeak, Mumble or Discord.
  • Some of these types of program require hosting services, which adds even more complexity.
  • Most of these types of program are complex to set up, and would require lots of audio device fiddling and volume customization per-player.
• Stops the noise from that one player who types really loud, eats chips with their headset on, or has screaming kids in the background. You know the one.

However, this feature does not exist in roll20's voice chat.

Options are:

• Muting ones self when not talking.
  • But this is quite a lot of effort in conversation.
• Manually using the mic's mute feature.
  • Some microphones have a button for this, which is better.
• Using a program which controls your microphone mute feature.
  • This is by far the best solution.

One recommendation is http://www.pushtotalk.nu/

• Tested and works with Windows 10 64bit.
• Free, a tiny download, no installation required, trivial to configure.
• One recommendation is to configure its hotkeys as ` (backtick) and right-control. It turns out that right-control will permanently un-mute until backtick is pressed, which is technically a bug but really useful.

Even though it's additional work, ensuring that game policy has all players doing this very simple step will vastly improve everyone's playing experience. Please consider it for your game.

If anyone has another solution or program, please take a moment to post it here.