Make an object solid

I want to make some things shatter in an animation I’m going to be making soon, but I don’t know how to make the shards look solid like the ones in this test I found on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/jjkGyQNtgc0

they probably just used a single plane, gave it a solidify modifier (dont apply) and also gave it an explode modifier. i would try that, but im not sure how you would do this with any object other than a plane.