WebGL and Microphone

[cjoverbay]

Also looking for WebGL microphone support! Only found out after I got it working in windows, then tried to build with WebGL.

Is there a timeline for this feature? Would be much appreciated!

[Marks4]

@jukka_j Heads up on this issue, request for microphone support since 2015 lol.

[FenrirGameStudio]

We’re also looking for this for our application : )

[BobBobson108]

Hey y’all, having the same need on my end. I found this. I have not tested it and won’t be testing it right away, but I found that it does compile. It looks like you need to wrap all of your pre-existing Microphone code in platform directives and use this for WebGL. It’s free and MIT.

https://github.com/tgraupmann/UnityWebGLMicrophone

[jukka_j]

Thanks for the heads up. I recently rewrote our WebGL webcam backend. On the web, both webcam and microphones are accessed using the same JS API, so that rewrite might help out adding microphone support as well.

Added a TODO to investigate this.

Note that supporting extremely low latency timing sensitive recording on the web will be a no-go. On the web there is currently no good solution for a “realtime audio thread” that native C/C++/C# code could feasibly port to (there’s the now deprecated ScriptProcessorNode and new upcoming AudioWorklet, but they are not portability solutions, also not yet supported in all browsers).

[Hypertectonic]

@jukka_j

Thanks for the heads up. I recently rewrote our WebGL webcam backend. On the web, both webcam and microphones are accessed using the same JS API, so that rewrite might help out adding microphone support as well.

Added a TODO to investigate this.

If you finally fix Mic support for WebGL it will be epic. It’s been years…

[Zaskar7777]

@jukka_j

Thanks for the heads up. I recently rewrote our WebGL webcam backend. On the web, both webcam and microphones are accessed using the same JS API, so that rewrite might help out adding microphone support as well.

Added a TODO to investigate this.

Note that supporting extremely low latency timing sensitive recording on the web will be a no-go. On the web there is currently no good solution for a “realtime audio thread” that native C/C++/C# code could feasibly port to (there’s the now deprecated ScriptProcessorNode and new upcoming AudioWorklet, but they are not portability solutions, also not yet supported in all browsers).

This is great news. There is a large group awaiting this feature. Any timelines when you think this might become available? Web makes corporates adopt solutions more easily due to higher security. In this absence of it my solution takes the standalone exe, or native app approach which is a hindrance. Looking forward to this feature in Unity.

[John1515]

@Schubkraft

Well, it is on our list but the priority is not high at all.

How is the priority list coming along?
Interested in this feature…

[Ikaro881]

Anyone have found a good sdk to use the microphone?

[Ikaro881]

@theylovegames

I have a few more tweaks to go, but it’s basically working. I still need to incorporate supporting multiple microphones and multiple sample rates in the WebGL plugin.

The HTML5 media API is a beast. When you just want the raw wave data it gives you blobs. When you have a blob you need to run it through a request to extract the bytes. Or you can bypass that and get the direct float data and you have to handle the timing manually.

There’s another nice things like needing to run in HTTPS if you don’t want to always see the Microphone access prompt.

Anyway, I’m improving this over time. WIP demo: https://theylovegames.com/WordDetection_1_1/

I have a C# interface that mirrors the regular Microphone API and uses the WebGL jslib when needed.

Seems close to what i am looking for, can you share the code or the asset?

[Luchianno]

+1, Looking forward for the support from Unity on this issue. Have been building WebGL based collaboration tool and usage of microphone is vital. We might have to switch to other tool or build target because of this issue

[Menion-Leah]

@jukka_j

Thanks for the heads up. I recently rewrote our WebGL webcam backend. On the web, both webcam and microphones are accessed using the same JS API, so that rewrite might help out adding microphone support as well.

Added a TODO to investigate this.

Note that supporting extremely low latency timing sensitive recording on the web will be a no-go. On the web there is currently no good solution for a “realtime audio thread” that native C/C++/C# code could feasibly port to (there’s the now deprecated ScriptProcessorNode and new upcoming AudioWorklet, but they are not portability solutions, also not yet supported in all browsers).

Any update about this? As pointed out by many, it could be very useful.

[twobob]

they said it wasnt doable. ask here New for WebGL in Unity 2021.2 ??

[Kibelon]

@Schubkraft

Well, it is on our list but the priority is not high at all.

I see you really meant it!
After 10 years, this is a bit ridiculous. I have very little hope this will be of any use, but please. Consider doing it. I also wanted it.

[djhatvr]

@gfoot

Here is a microphone plugin then: http://www.gfootweb.webspace.virginmedia.com/MicrophoneWebGL.unitypackage

It is crude and basic. Look at TestMicrophoneWebGL.cs for a usage example.

You can also try out that example here: http://www.gfootweb.webspace.virginmedia.com/TestMicrophoneWebGL/

Note that the demo only works on Firefox due to limitations in Unity’s audio playback code. The microphone side of things works fine on both - at least, I see sensible-looking data even on Chrome, I just can’t get it into an audioclip to actually play it back again.

As shown in the example, you should call Init(), then call PollInit() until it stops saying “pending”. Hopefully it then says “ready”, in which case you can carry on; otherwise it will say an error of some sort. One reason for the polling is that the user will be prompted to allow access to the microphone, so we need to wait for that.

Once it is initialized you can call Start() to start recording and Stop() to stop recording. During recording, the plugin buffers up the microphone data in units of whatever buffer size you passed into Init(). You can query how many buffers it is holding using GetNumBuffers(), and you can pop the next buffer using GetBuffer().

These functions should work fine both during recording and after stopping, and you could in theory record indefinitely, so long as you consume the buffers. If there are no pending buffers then GetBuffer() also returns false, so you could just poll it from your Update() function and ignore GetNumBuffers.

Hey gfoot, do you have a new link for your Microphone wrapper code?

[djhatvr]

@Kibelon

I see you really meant it!
After 10 years, this is a bit ridiculous. I have very little hope this will be of any use, but please. Consider doing it. I also wanted it.

Dito…

[FundsFi]

@Schubkraft

Well, it is on our list but the priority is not high at all.

Microphone for WebGL is very much needed!

Can you please make it a priority?

I would really appreciate it!

[dan_soqqle]

+1 for updates. Still wondering how people are surviving without Microphone on Webgl.

[Hymnkey]

Is there an update with the Microphone for webgl?

[unityruba]

A really great way that’ll help us prioritize supporting microphone for WebGL is adding/voting for it in productboard here: Platforms roadmap | Unity that way we can make a case for dedicating resources to it, especially given all the other big features we’re working on.