Learn how Breakroom's conference system components work together—including voice zones, webcams, and more—and how you can customize them to suit your needs.
Breakroom's conference system is comprehensive, and consists of:
In this section, we'll explore the conference system core in greater depth. You'll get to know the bones of the product, and learn more about how you can build Regions that truly serve your needs. Whether you want to add additional breakout areas to a Region, remove presenter seats from a stage, or integrate educational content into Breakroom, we'll walk you through every step.
The instructions provided in this section presume an advanced working knowledge of Breakroom. Please consult our documentation if you need help installing and positioning virtual objects, or editing the RoomFurniture component.
Understanding the relationship between voice zones, zone types, and conference system permissions is critical for customizing your Breakroom workspace.
Collaboration is the soul of Breakroom—and that collaboration happens inside different types of voice zones. Voice zones are virtual objects that encompass the areas where audio and video sharing will take place. These objects are normally invisible to you and your users.
Each voice zone type behaves differently, giving you the ability to structure online work, conferences, and presentations in a number of ways. By adding breakout areas, creating custom voice zones, and editing the RoomFurniture component attached to Breakout Area and Voice Zone objects, you can streamline communication and remove potential pain points.
This page will serve as a brief introduction to the different voice zone types and how they can be used. It is strongly recommended that you read and understand this information prior to customizing your first Breakroom Region.
The instructions provided in this section presume an advanced working knowledge of Breakroom. Please consult our documentation if you need help installing and positioning virtual objects, or editing the RoomFurniture component.
Currently, Breakroom offers five different voice zone types.
Voice chat: Available to all users.
Webcam and screen share: Restricted to only those users in the designated presenter seats. Moderators can choose to enable media sharing permissions for the audience if they wish.
Voice chat, webcam and screen share: Restricted to only those users in the designated presenter seats. Moderators can choose to enable media sharing permissions for the audience if they wish.
Voice chat, webcam and screen share: Available to all users. Everyone can chat and share media.
Voice chat: Available to all users.
Webcam and screen share: Disabled. No one can share media.
Voice chat, webcam and screen share: Disabled. No one can voice chat or share media.
Voice is the standard setting for the Global voice zone, which is an invisible voice zone that encompasses the whole of your Region. It may help to visualize this voice zone as the general environment of your Region, or as "anywhere another, specific voice zone is not." This topic will be explained in more detail below. Voice zones can also be nested within one another.
Voice zone type information is stored in the Zone Type property, under the voice zone object's RoomFurniture component.
The media streaming system cannot accommodate more than 17 simultaneous webcam or screen share users at this time.
To visually illustrate how multiple voice zones could be set up in a Region, let's take a closer look at one of the Breakroom Region templates.
The image above is a flyover shot of the Breakroom Campus Large Region. You can see that it consists of several lobbies, meeting rooms, and an amphitheater, as well as trees and gardens. Everything you see here is contained inside the Global voice zone.
Here's a top-down view of the same Region. Each of the highlighted areas above is a separate voice zone. Depending on each zone's type, these spaces offer different communication options.
The circular amphitheater is a Presenter zone. Someone can give a video presentation here, and audience members will not be able to interrupt by sharing their own video streams. In order to present, users will have to sit on a presenter seat (normally located at the front of the auditorium). The audience can interact via voice chat to ask questions or participate in activities.
The red, yellow, blue, and green offices are Meeting zones. Everyone can share video and speak on voice chat, just as they might expect to do in a physical conference room.
Everywhere else falls within the Global voice zone, which is a Voice zone. This means that users can voice chat with one another as they move between the offices, but they cannot share their webcams or screens.
Only users with avatars currently located inside a particular voice zone can hear, share, and communicate with other users in that zone. This design makes it possible for different meetings or events to be held concurrently in the same Region without technical interference or audio competition. Likewise, when you are inside an isolated voice zone (such as an office), you will no longer hear voice chat taking place in the Global voice zone.
When you approach the edge of a voice zone, a transparent blue boundary indicator will appear. This serves as a reminder that you are about to enter or leave a voice zone, or that you need to enter a voice zone in order to speak with users located on the other side.
Among the voice zone types, Presenter and Audience zones are unique, as both make use of special presenter seats. By positioning their avatars in these seats, presenters can gain access to voice chat and media sharing functions within a particular voice zone, even if these functions are otherwise restricted. Users with access to the Breakroom moderator tools can also grant access to voice chat or media sharing functions as needed.
For help setting up or customizing Presenter and Audience zones, as well as detailed information on using the moderator tools to control audience access to media sharing functions, please see our Running Your Event section.
Empower your users to speak their minds. Read on for more information about Breakroom's spatial audio feature, as well as step-by-step instructions for disabling voice chat.
There may be occasions where you want to disable voice chat on a Region-wide basis, or disable voice chat in an individual breakout area or voice zone.
To disable voice chat entirely for a Region, follow these steps.
Log in to your Breakroom World and navigate your avatar to the Region you would like to edit.
Click the Region Information button located above the mini map.
Click the Edit button in the Permissions panel.
Scroll down to the section titled VOIP. Check the box next to the "VOIP is disabled in this Region" option.
Scroll down and click the Save button.
To restore voice chat to a muted Region, repeat the steps above and check the box next to the "VOIP is enabled for everyone by default" option.
Muting voice chat through the Region Information window will not remove the Microphone button from the conference system. However, the button will no longer work if clicked.
To disable all media sharing options in a voice zone (including voice chat, webcam, and screen sharing), follow the steps below.
Log in to your Breakroom World and navigate your avatar to the Region you would like to edit.
Open the Region Editor by clicking the Edit Region button at the bottom of your screen.
In the Objects window, locate the Breakroom Breakout Area or Breakroom Voice Zone object you want to edit. (Tip: You can use the search field at the top of the window to search for a specific object.) Click on the object name to launch the Inspector window.
In the Inspector window, locate the RoomFurniture component. Expand this component by clicking the > arrow located to the left of its name.
In the Zone Type field, enter the word "silent."
Click the Reset Zones button to reset the conferencing system.
Click the Save button to store your changes.
After you have closed the Region Editor, leave the voice zone and then return to it. You will see that most of the media buttons are gone, and that the Microphone button is grayed out to indicate that it is inaccessible.
is a key conference system function—but at Breakroom, we empower you to build your World, your way. On this page we'll review instructions for disabling voice chat when needed, as well as discuss the spatial audio feature and how it works.
The instructions provided in this section presume an advanced working knowledge of Breakroom. Please consult our documentation if you need help and virtual objects, or editing the .
Click the Objects Button to launch the .
If you prefer, you can turn voice chat off while leaving other media sharing options available by editing the located under the . However, if you have nested voice zones, users may still be able to hear and participate in voice chat from surrounding voice zones (including the Global voice zone).
have spatial audio set up by default. This means that a crowded virtual event will sound much like a similar event in "real life"—you'll be able to easily hear the people standing right next to you, while you may not be able to hear someone standing on the other side of the room. In a virtual world like Breakroom, this can initially confuse some users.
If you're having trouble hearing someone in voice chat even though you can see their avatar, make sure that you're both standing in the same . (If someone is standing in an auditorium voice zone, for example, and someone else is standing just outside of it, they will not be able to hear each other.) If you're both in the same voice zone, try moving closer together.
If you're still having trouble using voice chat, please consult our . If you want to edit the spatial distance for a specific breakout area or voice zone object, or turn off spatial audio altogether, please consult our documentation.