I'm making a mock tetris game, so I can see your second point doing well as once the tetris block is in position it pretty much will not change color/move for a decent amount of time. This would be quite a bit of work manually inputting it though if I'm imagining on how to implement it correctly. I do understand to be efficient this is a requirement though with programming. Your first point does seem like a good way to handle it also, but a little bit of work (which I don't mind if it is what needs to be done).
I was using a program (LED Matrix Studio) which would let me make the frames of animation and it spits out the hex code that also lines up with the way I wired it. Thats what I was using or trying to work with at the moment due to ease of use.
Thanks again for your response. No worries on the formula issue, I was just like... my math is horribly wrong if it uses 1.4 gigs for this animation ha.