I just repaired the power circuit on Witch Lights 2. Made myself a diagram to help next time.

As I start to look online for resources for pixel animation planning, I find one inadvertently on the Adafruit Learning Center for animating NeoPixels using bitmaps.

Which is literally, exactly what I'm trying to figure out this second. Except I'm using C++, which is an extra wrinkle. Still, really useful read.

Bless Adafruit. And I'm not just saying that because of this; I owe the Adafruit NeoPixel Uber Guide for saving me many costly learning experiences in the design of the Witch Lights.

I wonder, would it be easier to design the animation bitmap if I used the horizontal axis for time, instead of the vertical axis?

It would be an interesting scripting challenge.