Is there a easy way of making custom patterns? Like maybe a program that makes one?
Can you be more specific about what you mean?
Do you mean software to display the patterns or software to create the bitmaps to display on the screen?
Here's my LED Matrix. Yes, I have no idea how to control the lights. And wanted to make my own patterns, like arrows, and that sort of thing.
Start by learning how to turn on and off specific LEDs, then build to being able to turn on two LED's at a time, then start trying to animate them (turning on one, then turning on another one etc). I know it sound very boring, but it's the best way to learn, and much better than someone giving you a bunch of code you don't understand, and then not getting why it doesn't work.
What does your code look like to drive that matrix? That has a lot to do with how easy it is to define a pattern to display.