What you learn: how to setup standard raytrace scene.
Making Hemisphere and Box
1. start your 3D studio max.
2. Create under Create/Geometry/GeoSphere. Make It Hemisphere.
3. Now you have to create another hemisphere. You do it by cloning the already created hemisphere. Select First hemisphere and go to Edit/Clone menu. And then click on Copy and OK.
4. Now you have two hemispheres with same measures.
5. click on scale 
button and make one
hemisphere smaller than other. like on the pic below.
6. Now move the smaller hemisphere a bit down.
7. Click on Geometry/Compund Objects/Boolean (smaller hemisphere is selected !!!). Select Subtraction (B-A) and then click on "Pick operand" button, and select bigger hemisphere.
8. Now you should get something like this:
9. now that you have a "cap" you can assign a material like clouds or some scenery to it. If you want reflection on your model.
10. Now go to Geometry/Standard Primitives/Box and create box with measures like hemisphere. Showed on pic below...
13. This is very important, you have to create a camera inside that chopped hemisphere.
14. Now scale that hemisphere so it is not visible in your camera. Click here to see how. That red thing is hemisphere.
Making Hemisphere and Box