Need help with 3D z-order overlapping, so confused

Just started experimenting with the 3D template. I'm trying to have a Sword sprite rotate around the character with a Z-elevation of 3, but when the sword sprite goes in front of the player billboard, it seems to be overlapping with the sword sprite's canvas box, rather than the actual sprite simply overlapping it. I get this horrible invisible canvas box overlap over the player billboard.

Here's a gif of what is happening, thanks.

gfycat.com/loathsomedangerousafricanfisheagle

Stuff has to be drawn in a per-object order. Make sure the layer on which the sword uses camera distance for rendering. If it already is, it probably won't get better than that.

See this manual entry: https://www.construct.net/en/make-games/manuals/construct-3/plugin-reference/3d-shape

Yeah it's already on the same layer as the Billboard which has camera distance 3d rendering. It seems to have trouble when the object is rotated around another object. I don't understand why sometimes the sword passes cleanly over the player sprite, but sometimes uses the rectangular invisible bounding box of the image

It will render incorrectly when the distance of the sword object is less than the player object (= in front).

Objects get rendered back to front, so first player sprite, then sword sprite which will overdraw the transparent areas and thus won't blend correctly with the objects that are behind.