i know how he did it, its a very simple effect, but very cool, see simple stuff is cool....

ok, anywho, to your question, just made transperency shader(for the 2 ones above this) made a sphere(of course) then made use of the lightning in Maya, works great as u can see, i used it for podracer, like the way he used it though too.

Great work, abstract art, kinda storta ish