I was looking for just these kinds of effects for a "dimensional rift" machine called the "Carlyle device" in a project I won't reveal. Coincidence. How do you do the laser lines? How did you generate the green plasma texture?

How do you sort them so that you don't get blank squares where lasers/plasma should be?

To get that effect, start with a quad whose center is at the origin. The quad should face forward and be double-sided(ie, turn off backface culling). Choose an axis of rotation say the y-axis. Copy the quad and rotate it just a bit around the axis. Continue until you have a fan of quads. You won't need many. Maybe just from 8 to 10. Now spin them all around the axis at the same speed. This only looks good from one direction. To make it look good at all angles, just do the same things again, but choose a different axis, for example the x-axis. This is good for spherical effects. You can offset the "quad-fans" and use rectangles instead of squares for even more effects. You should use the same texture on all of the quads for spherical effects.